Home Builder Digital Marketing Summit
Skip to main content
Home Builder Digital Marketing Podcast Digital Marketing Podcast Hosted by Greg Bray and Kevin Weitzel

51 The Growing Marketing Expectations in Home Buying - Kim Sandoval

The Growing Marketing Expectations in Home Buying - Kim Sandoval

Show Notes

Guest Links: 

LinkedIn:

Websites:


References:


We have a favor to ask; if you enjoy the podcast, please take a minute to rate it on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to the show. A quick rating and short review help others discover the podcast.

Production by: Josh Williamson and KT Maschler 

Editing by: KT Maschler 

On this week's episode of the Home Builder Digital Marketing Podcast we welcomed Kim Sandoval of Classic Homes & Flying Horse. She joins Greg and Kevin to discuss how growing marketing expectations have changed the home buying industry and so much more. 

Kim has directed the marketing operations of Classic Homes and Flying Horse for nearly 20 years. She is responsible for corporate brand management, marketing strategy, digital and internet marketing, public relations, and sales merchandising. In addition to her marketing responsibilities, Kim also co-manages Classic Homes Design Studio. Prior to joining Classic, Kim owned and managed a boutique marketing firm located in Colorado Springs that specialized in real estate and hospitality marketing. Classic has been recognized with numerous marketing and industry awards under Kim’s direction. Most notably, Classic has been named the #1 homebuilder in Colorado Springs for 13 consecutive years…and counting!  In addition to many corporate responsibilities and accomplishments, Mrs. Sandoval’s community involvement has included serving as a board and committee member of numerous community non-profit organizations.

Transcript

Greg Bray:  [00:00:00] Hello everybody and welcome to today's episode of the Home Builder Digital Marketing Podcast. I'm Greg Bray with Blue Tangerine

Kevin Weitzel:  and I'm Kevin Weitzel with Outhouse.

Greg Bray: We are excited today to welcome to the show. Kim Sandoval the director of corporate marketing and design with Classic Homes.

Welcome Kim. Thanks for joining.

Kim Sandoval: Thanks for having me.

Greg Bray: Kim, for those who haven't had a chance to meet you yet, why don't you give us that short introduction. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Kim Sandavol: Sure thing. So like you mentioned, my name is [00:01:00] Kim Sandoval and I'm the director of corporate marketing and design with Classic Homes in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

I have been with the company for, and we'll talk a little bit more about it during the podcast, but I've been with the company in one facet or another either consulting or in-house for a little over 20 years now. So I'm kind of have grown up in the home building industry and Classic has been around for 30 years.

So I've gotten to see a lot of that growth. Face-to-face hands-on and have helped shape some of the marketing along the way.

Greg Bray: That's actually kind of different in today's world to be with the same company for such a large portion of the company life that's gotta be kind of, you got to feel some ownership about how things have been going.

I would assume it's part of that.

Kim Sandavol: Yeah, I think you feel some ownership, but I think it's also the mentoring that comes along with it. You see that we've got folks who have been [00:02:00] here for the full 30 years and are going on their 31st anniversary with the company. We have others who have just started with the company that have been here for two months.

So there's so much comradery there and teamwork that you have a whole generation of employees who are mentoring new people coming into the field. That piece of it is super rewarding, but you know, most of that credit goes to the ownership group in the way that they've shaped this company over the years.

We joke about it frequently here, but a lot of us have grown up and have spent the better part of our adult lives with one another eight hours a day, sometimes longer. So we've really grown this company together, but yeah, you do, you start to feel some ownership at some point, just because you're holding on so tight.

Kevin Weitzel: Well, you know, usually we want to find out, you know, like what brought you to the home building industry. But I mean, you've been with the same company for 20 years, but what did grow, take you to the home building industry versus working marketing in any other sector that's [00:03:00] out there.

Kim Sandavol: Yeah, that's an interesting question.

So when I say 20 years and I kind of alluded to it in one facet or another. So when I started out in working with Classic, I was working with a local ad agency. So I was on the other side of the table where we were providing advertising marketing plans really traditional media. This would have been in late 99, early 2000.

So I was pretty green in the industry at that point and was really learning while we were handling an account, which fast forward just a few years I wouldn't have known would have become. My employer where I would be spending probably likely the rest of my career. So it was quite an evolution on how I was introduced to Classic.

So for the first half, the first decade, I was basically a consultant and I was serving as an account [00:04:00] director, so I was overseeing the majority of the marketing from an outside, but it wasn't in house. So there's a very pivotal point where you start to cross that line.

The longer you've worked with a client where even if you're outsourced, you start to feel like your in-house on certain accounts. For me, Classic and Flying Horse, we're certain that account. So when we went in through the market downturn at right around 08 the ad agency that I was working with we had shaped Classic.

We had kind of worked through a lot of growing pains and then the market crashed. So at that point, we kind of made a decision and I ended up branching out as a boutique marketing consultant where I was only handling home building-related business. That's about the time where I learned, okay, this is kind of it for me.

This is really what I love. I love the development side of it. I [00:05:00] love the product. I love the building side of it. What was unique for me was that Classic also had ownership in a hospitality arm, which is very different from any other home builder. I'm sure there are others, but it was unique for me.

So in some ways, right at the time I was consulting, it was the name of my company was BMD and it stood for virtual marketing director, which was fitting because during that timeframe, you know, as a lot of us on this podcast now, During that timeframe, home builders were having to make a lot of big decisions with staffing.

And how are we going to stay afloat? Where can we be lean? Where can we be really lean? So by nature of it, marketing ends up being one of those hot topics that you just have to look at and how much return am I really getting? So when I branched out and started doing the freelance consulting that's when I really was one foot in one foot out.

So during that timeframe, I worked with a lot of other local [00:06:00] builders and other local developers. So my knowledge base on what it took to really put a home builder at the top of the market was being shaped throughout that entire timeframe. Then in 2016, we finally decided, okay, You need to be on this side of the door.

So I joined the club. I joined the team full-time in 2016. So from 99, until 2015, I was an outside consultant though. A lot of people didn't realize that they thought I was an in-house marketing director.

Kevin Weitzel: That's actually really interesting because I would not have guessed that they would have gone all the way to 2016 for that, you know?

Cause I know that a lot of especially smaller local builders don't have the capacity to handle on their payroll a full-time marketing director or a staff of people in marketing, so they can benefit from that outside services resource. But yeah, once you get to a certain size, especially you said with Classic companies, you have Classic Homes and Flying  Horse.

[00:07:00] Kim Sandavol: Yeah. So Flying Horse, it's a golf course resort. It started in about 2000, I guess it was 2004 when we first broke ground, and at that time, it was fairly uncommon. Normally you would go in and you'd start to build the residential piece of it and then you'd branch out into the amenities.

Right? Well, Flying Horse and Classic decided to do the opposite. They built the golf course, they built a clubhouse. they had an athletic center and homes were being built simultaneously. So I was part of that whole launch program as well. But like you mentioned, sometimes it is more affordable to outsource those marketing services.

During this timeframe with the growth that was happening on the hospitality side, but also the, you know, all the totality of what was happening on the home building side, it still made a lot of sense for me to be outsourced because we didn't have to have a big in-house marketing team.

[00:08:00] Because in theory, your consultant should have those contacts, right? If you needed something designed from a graphic design standpoint, you reach out to a poll of graphic designers. So the fact that I was coordinating that from the outside was still a really good it was good to mix. It was a good mix and it worked for a long time.

And then in 15, 16, things started to really pick up and started to get busier. And it became where Classic truly was probably 80% of my firm's business. So it made a lot of sense at that time to say, okay, let's close this division, and let's go in-house. And for lack of a better description, we formed somewhat of an in-house ad agency at this point.

Greg Bray: No, that's a great story. I think it illustrates there is a time where it makes sense to outsource and a time where it makes sense to bring certain things in-house. But, Kim, before we get too far into some other things, why don't you give us just that quick overview of Classic Homes as [00:09:00] far as where you build in the buyer demographic that you guys serve, just so our listeners kind of have a feel for the types of homes you're working with.

Kim Sandavol: Sure. So Classic has been in business since 1989. It's a local company, so it's been exclusive to El Paso County in Colorado, which encompasses Monument Colorado, Peyton, Fountain, Colorado Springs, and then some ancillary areas. Our primary focus today is Colorado Springs and Monument, and we build a variety of products.

So we build townhomes, we build Alley Load traditional neighborhood style products. We have our traditional, single-family and two years ago we introduced what we call the Midtown collection. It's for, the best way to describe it, it's pull apart townhomes. So they're individual single-family units, but very urban, very chic, very modern come with a small yard for pets and [00:10:00] having an attached two-car garage.

So it's a little bit of a different product, certainly different from Colorado Springs. You see it in a lot of larger other urban markets, but we've been one of the first builders to bring that here. We're just in a phase right now where we're closing out our paired patio product, which was built in several communities throughout Colorado Springs and Monument.

And that is a paired unit, typically a carefree kind of lifestyle, a lot of maintenance, low maintenance included a product. Then we're in the process of developing a new product, which we're still in the process of naming. So won't say it here today, it's coming soon. It is the best way to describe it as it's a four-pack product where you have shared courtyard drives and we'll be building that.

It's a couple of new communities this year. So a lot of product. Then from the land development standpoint, we're also a land developer and that usually is the Aha [00:11:00] moment for most people when I'm describing it. In our market, our size, you don't have a lot of builder-developer relationships, it's more of this arm is developing and these builders are purchasing lots. In our case, we develop a lot of the lots that we build on, but we also sell some of those lots to other builders. So in some of our flagship communities like Flying Horse, Sanctuary Point, Forest Lakes we have builder partners that we've sold lots to, and they build with us throughout the life of the project.

So it's kind of fun. It's dynamic for sure. And we have a lot of things going on all the time. Always something new every day.

Kevin Weitzel:  With that product offering, especially since you are not only developing land, but you also have a hospitality wing. Do you also have a for-rent product or is it all for sale?

Kim Sandavol: Funny, you should mention that. Just as of late, we do have a rental arm and it operates under a [00:12:00] different company. So parent company, and then you've got subsidiaries essentially, now we've just dipped our toe into the rental market. We've had some rentals throughout the years for different reasons, but we now have a good pocket of rentals in a townhome community that we're developing.

Greg Bray: That is a wide variety of products though. Kim. I think that is an interesting business decision to have such a wide variety. Do you find from a marketing perspective that it becomes more challenging if you're going after kind of different buyer profiles or do you have enough overlap there that that's okay?

Kim Sandavol: I think there are two answers to that. The first is it's challenging in that you're always learning about new buyer demographics. So our efforts for researching, it's a long run. We [00:13:00] keep researching, we keep adjusting. So on the one hand, it's more challenging, but on the other hand, it's much more fun because you can throw some messages out there where a lot of builders don't have the ability to say no really we can be everything to everyone.

That's not a message that's easy to convey, but when you've been in business, as long as we have, it's kind of that natural progression where I think we've surpassed that piece where years ago people would think, well, Classic doesn't build a move up. They only build a move up, there isn't anything that's entry-level.

That thought process there was that just at that time of our growth, we didn't have a lot of first home buyer products today. That's changed drastically with our townhomes and our Midtown product in our traditional Alley Load. We're now seeing some of those price barriers change. And so for me, from a marketing [00:14:00] direction standpoint, I love that aspect of it because it gives me such a depth and breadth of how to research housing because it's so different.

And I like that piece of it.

Greg Bray: I can see that. Hey, we throw a message out there and it resonates with one audience and maybe for the wrong product, but we can just push them to the other product. Right. So there we go.

Kim Sandavol: Absolutely.

Greg Bray: So Kim let's, let's talk a little more about this journey you made from being the outside consultant serving as the marketing director to moving in-house.

How, did that change the way you structured your team? You mentioned you have this kind of resource like designers and freelancers and things that you could tap into. Did you keep that network or did you bring some of them with you or how did that kind of work through that evolution?

Kim Sandavol: It's a little combination of both. So when I first joined the team I [00:15:00] did bring one of my rockstar marketing coordinators with me. And she's very new to the business. And I was really trained to train her and groom her to take on more responsibility with our clients. So she was a natural for me to bring over with me just because I knew there was going to be a lot of learning and change for me to go from being an outsourced consultant, to being in-house and my 100% of my focus. So I did bring one person over with me and that was the first year. Then the second year I did bring over one of our graphic designers who was an outsource freelance company.

He and I have worked together for probably the last 20 years and he was kind of at a stage where I think it was sort of burning the midnight oil a little bit because he was running his own shop. So that carries a whole different type of responsibility. So I did bring him on board and then today we're a team of [00:16:00] in-house, it's four, and then we still farm out, you know, public relations from time to time, we do the majority of our design in house.

I do have several digital consultants because as you know, Greg and Kevin, that is so ever-changing and it's one of those areas where I want to stay on top of it. But I also know that there are firms that this is all they do every day. And so I like to tap into those resources as well.

Greg Bray: It is a challenge to keep up in today's world. Absolutely.

Kim Sandoval: The digital rules change by the minute. In fact, while we're recording this, they're still changing.

Greg Bray: I know sometimes it's almost overwhelming. What do I get to learn today? Right? Right,

Kim Sandavol:  Exactly. Exactly.

Greg Bray: So tell us Kim from a, from a digital verse cause you've been working in this industry, you know, where I'm going to say, you may have even done some newspaper advertising. [00:17:00] So, tell us a little bit about the journey from some of those more traditional marketing and advertising activities to digital and where you feel that digital now fits in that mix.

Kim Sandavol: You know, Colorado Springs, it's a second-tier market in Colorado, right? So we're always just a little bit behind the curve when it comes to trends and marketing. So believe it or not, some of our buyers still read the newspaper. We've learned that through some trial and error of, we went through periods where I'd pull way back on it.

And I'd realize, Oh, our paired patio homes aren't doing so great right now, let's put this back in and see what happens. So we still have a pretty broad mix of media where we've really kind of pulled away as in the broadcast world and that because of OTT and streaming and so many other digital ways, and you know, the [00:18:00] internet in general on how people get their news, we have pulled way back there.

I would say that from our digital aspect on it, it's pretty well rounded. It's very diverse. We try a lot of everything and then we research and then we benchmark and then we reorganize it. But I would say the biggest digital change we've seen in probably the last three years is that the whole focal targeting from a digital standpoint, it's a game-changer now because we have so many people moving to Colorado from other States.

So I've actually spent a lot of time learning more about retargeting. So we'll let them hit your site once and then figure out where they came from, reorganize your digital platform, and retarget them. That in and of itself has changed our marketing outlook tremendously. What it does is it keeps evolving.

So then our plans keep evolving. So if I had to [00:19:00] compare last decade to the second. What I would say is 10 years ago, I probably had a marketing plan that was built annually and I followed it pretty closely. Now I have what is more of a marketing benchmark on an annual basis. And it's adjusted quarterly sometimes every 60 days just based on lead generation.

And the beauty of the digital side of it is back those leads. We know where they came from. We know how they found us, we know how to retarget them, and we know how to get the information quickly. And that to me is probably the most rewarding aspect of going from traditional media to new.

Digital media is just, you get a little bit of instant gratification because you don't run a newspaper ad and say, okay, on Tuesday we know last week, but this many people came in. It's more in the case of last 30 minutes, we had 45 inquiries. So it's just, you [00:20:00] know, Data age, instant gratification. We all fall victim to it.

Greg Bray: I love though that you hit on this idea that even with traditional media, that doesn't have the tracking that digital offers, right. You were still tracking something cause you saw change and said, Oh wait a minute, We changed something, there was an impact that we didn't want. Let's go back.

So you were still testing and still measuring, even though maybe it wasn't quite as easy to measure as maybe analytics on a website, it gives you today. So I think that's a great, a great message and a great reminder there. I also love the fact that you're talking about an annual plan, may need to be revised a little more frequently than annually. I think I need to do that too.

Kim Sandavol: Yeah, I do. I think that's something that my team has the luxury of having an ownership group and a leadership group that they say, okay, let's have our annual budget.

And let's all agree that we're not going to exceed that, but they also understand that we need to [00:21:00] be able to have the ability to grow and fluctuate with that. So if in one quarter I need to spend a little bit more to accomplish something that has to do with a lot release that's okay. But overall, we kind of managed to a bottom line and I know that's different than a lot of builders.

Greg Bray: So Kim, tell us a little more about some of these as you've experimented and tried different things. Some of the challenges you may run into with trying some new technology or a new process and kind of how you overcame that.

Kim Sandavol: I think all of my years as a consultant because I was forever vetting different options for my clients.

And when you're a consultant, you got to spend the money, like it's your own, right? Because the second you start to feel like it's somebody else's, I think that's when you start to make mistakes. And so I subscribed to a very personal mantra, very early on that if I'm going to invest in [00:22:00] something on behalf of someone else treat that money like it's mine.

When you put that mindset and you start to think through that for everything that you do, it's uncanny. It seems like a small thing, but the change is big because suddenly you start to look at, okay, I'm going to do this retargeting campaign. Right. Well, you're going to give it some time, see how it resonates, but then when you go back in and reevaluate it and you're spending the money as though it's yours, you stop and you go, Ooh, I'm not sure that's worth it so let's mix it up again.

That's really how we landed on the whole traditional versus digital is I will really track what I'm doing in one community. I'll really listen to what the sales team is seeing in the field to watch traffic reports real carefully. I watch analytics. I look at the website data and then we adjust from there.

So it's kind of real-time for lack of a better description, but I think just really being careful with how you put those dollars. In [00:23:00] play is really where I think that's really where my team excels. And I think that's where classic in general department-wise, I think that every department subscribes to kind of that approach.

Kevin Weitzel: Note to self it's not a shopping spree. I do have a question. So when you're talking about conventional marketing versus digital marketing and, you know, print versus items that you can put on your website how has, you know, the pandemic when, you know, obviously it hit and it affected all builders, but you also mentioned that you've seen an influx of people relocating to your location.

So because of that, What have you put in place, whether it be digital assets or ways of seeing the homes ahead of time? Like, are you using real on-demand locks? Are you using virtual tours? What are you doing to expand that viewing of your products?

Kim Sandavol: I'd say that we're still, with the pandemic, that certainly was a [00:24:00] game-changer for us. And we were fortunate in that we had a digital toolbox to walk, but together long before that, so we were doing virtual tours. We were doing 3d tours. We were doing virtual walkthroughs. We were pretty prolific on Zillow. And then we also are in a unique position because we don't have a lot of finished inventory right now.

And I think that's true for a lot of builders. So we did do some of the self-guided tours early on. And we just, we aren't keeping inventory homes on the ground as long as we used to, which is a good thing, but it's also not a good thing because there's not a lot of inventory. The other thing that we work really hard on is our website.

I mean, we treat that like a virtual model. And we assume that nearly every phone call, every contact form, every time somebody walks through the door, they've been to the website. And in some cases, I mean, consumers are very smart. They're very savvy. [00:25:00] They know how to find information. So early on when we were making this digital transformation, we thought, okay, don't put everything on your website because you want them to call you.

Over the years, we've really moved away from that. We really have gotten to the point where they want to find it. If they're going to spend the time looking for it and they still decide to pick up the phone and call, then that's even a more qualified lead. So we spend a lot of time keeping our website updated in real-time from interactive lot maps to virtual tours, every nearly every model, a lot of photos, big on photo galleries.

And then we spend a lot of time on social so that we can share that kind of experience. So from a digital standpoint, I think really it's builders, aren't paying attention to their website on a, certainly a daily basis, but in some cases, it really should be hourly. There's, [00:26:00] there's so much that you're missing because think about if you were inviting somebody into a model home, And you didn't have it furnished and you didn't have any window coverings and it was dirty, you think of all of those things.

Probably aren't going to have a really great buyer experience website. The same if your content is old, if it's clunky, if it takes too many clicks, if it takes too long to load, those are all the reasons people go somewhere else. So attention spans are very, very short and we've learned that giving them more information is actually a good thing.

Greg Bray: Kim. I have had that conversation with builders before about, well, we don't want to tell them too much cause we don't want them to figure it all out and not call us, and I appreciate you bringing that up. Do you feel like there's still a lot of builders that feel that way? That they hold back a little bit.

And maybe you can't speak for others, but just from what you've seen and heard, do you feel like that attitude still out there?

Kim Sandavol:  I think there's [00:27:00] some of it, I think most have gravitated toward to the extent that you can update the content and update it. Well then yes, let's put it out there. I think the ones who don't have it out there, some of that has to be a staffing obstacle, right?

Because if you're updating pricing and you're updating inventory, and you're going to put all of that information out there, but you're not going to mark it as sold or mark it as pending or mark it as under contract, then that defeats the customer experience as well.

So I think for those who have less on their website, I don't think it's a matter of they are holding the information hostage anymore. I think it has more to do with staff bandwidth on once you start putting it out there, somebody has got to maintain it. And I think that it looks easy, but it's fast-paced for sure.

Greg Bray: No, that's a great point. For [00:28:00] those who are interested in data feeds to help manage that, I know a guy, we try not to plug here, but every now and then, you know, it's just we're really appreciative of your time. So we want to be respectful there, but just a few more questions.

You know, what changes are you seeing in the buyer's expectations now that you're having to deal with that things that they didn't use to care about that now is just expected? Especially from an online perspective,

Kim Sandavol: It's that instant answering the phone, quicker response, responses from email. I remember about it probably five years ago, and I don't remember if it was something Kevin put out there, it might've been Jeff Shores could even be Mike Lyons, I'm not sure, but I remember it being something like 90% of every lead that comes through from a builder perspective goes unanswered. [00:29:00] When we first started moving into the digital side, we went ouch that hurts.

That would be the equivalent of 10 people walking into your model, and you only said hello to one of them.

It's insane when you start thinking about it that way, but from a builder perspective, when you start to see the volume that you're hit with in terms of leads, that piece of it, I think, is something that should be paid attention to because those are real people who want information right now. I think the right now is the key piece of that.

The instant gratification that I talked about earlier, I'm guilty of it. If I go onto Amazon or if I go on to even car shop, I want to be able to build it right then, I want to see the final total. I want to see when I can get it and I want to see what kind of handling charges that are. Right? I think the new home market is starting to move that way even more now. When I'd mentioned that we had so many people coming in from out of state those folks in particular because they can't get in their [00:30:00] car, schedule an appointment, and go see a model.

So they need that quick response. So I think our team is very, very good at that. We have an online sales team that has grown from one to four in the past year, and they do a fantastic job of that in our onsite sales team is so supportive of that and they make sure that those appointments are held and they give feedback.

So I think that piece of it, the customer kind of expects that. Now I think gone are the days that you put a contact form into a website and you hope that somebody gets back to you in two or three days. In most cases, they want you to be back to them by the end of that business day.

Kevin Weitzel: In all reality, you want to free up the sales professional to give the wow experience more so than covering minutia.

You know, you shouldn't waste their time with them. Minutiae, give that information to the client right on, instantaneous at their fingertips lead, or their [00:31:00] fingertip for them to be able to find themselves. And then let the sales team really rock and roll, right?

Kim Sandavol: Yeah, because at that point you've accomplished two things.

Once you've made contact and you've made that first impression with the customer. And that's the type of thing you don't get a second shot at. I mean, that is a one-time deal. But the second thing you've done is that you've prepped the buyer enough or the customer enough that when they walk into the sales office and they're going in for a meeting, you can actually treat that more like a meeting than a shopping experience.

And I think that that's like key piece that is different. Now people used to go out and browse. I was always of the opinion of. If they've gone out to the model and they've driven their car there and they've gotten out of it and they've blocked in there, they're probably not just looking around. They probably are there for a reason.

And so I think the digital aspect of that takes it a step further and you give them the information they need and they're going to [00:32:00] be out. They're going to get it anyway and it's available. So I think that's the biggest piece.

Greg Bray: I love that. I love that. So thanks, Kim. Well, as you are looking ahead, are there any big trends that you're watching or things that you feel like I need to start getting ready for that aren't quite here yet?

Kim Sandavol: Yeah. You know, I think there's a timeframe where we need to really think through ongoing followup because there's such an influx in the home building industry. I don't need to even talk about it because it's everywhere. It's so busy right now. I think we all need to be mindful of the clientele we do have coming in the door right now that isn't purchasing right away because they may just be, I think, follow up.

Right. That's the big thing is how do you stay in touch and in front of these customers for a long time? Home buying isn't an instantaneous decision. And so it could be a long cycle time. And so I think we all need to, [00:33:00] as builders probably step away for a minute and say, yes, it's super fast-paced right now, but what are we doing to plan for the future?

And what are we doing to adjust when some of this post-pandemic, you know, in pandemic kind of things starts to slow down a little bit. So I think we all need to be really prepared for that. I don't know what that looks like. I just know that it's in the back of my mind all the time that we're so caught up in our day-to-day.

We gotta get this done. We gotta move this suite. You know nothing is more important than getting the house built. I could talk about marketing all day long, but the real customer experience comes when the house goes under construction. And so we're always thinking about that from the builder perspective is you're always winning customers, you're winning referrals.

And so I think we all need to make sure that even though it's fast-paced, we need to make sure that experience, that customer experience is second to none. But we have a fan for life.

Greg Bray: So if I understood you [00:34:00] correctly, you believe that today's level of selling is not normal and will not stay this way forever.

Is that what I understand?

Kim Sandavol: It's a freak of nature

Greg Bray: Okay.

All right. I think you're pretty safe in that projection. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, it's but it's really a challenge. Right? Cause you're busy. You're too busy to do that other stuff. If you're not careful if you don't force it, so for sure. Well, Kim, again, thank you so much.

Any last words of advice that you just didn't have a chance to share today that you wanted to make sure you got out there to the world?

Kim Sandavol: Heck, I'll do a plug for Blue Tangerine. Really honestly Greg, you and your team have been phenomenal on the hospitality side of it. So I knew I threw a little bit of a curveball your way.

When I came in and said, yes, I'm a home builder, but by the way, I have a country club, a golf course, a steak house, and a hotel. Do you think you can help me with that digital side of it? So I [00:35:00] just, I can't say enough on the reporting side and the follow-up, the attention to detail that customer service aspect that I was just talking about from our perspective, your team nails that hands down.

Greg Bray: Oh, wow. Well, if this was a video, you would see me blushing, but you know, it's audio, so you'll just have to hear it. Well, thank you, Kim, that was unexpected, and really appreciate it. Thank you again so much, Kim, for joining us, and thank you everybody for listening today to the Home Builder Digital Marketing Podcast.

I'm Greg Bray with Blue Tangerine

Kevin Weitzel: and I'm Kevin Weitzel with Outhouse. Thank you.

Nationals Silve Award Logo
Winner of The Nationals Silver Award 2022

Best Professional
Development Series


Digital Marketing Podcast Logo Logo

Hosted By

Blue Tangerine Logo
Outhouse Logo