Marketing in an Unpredictable World - Kevin Weitzel, Jamie Godwin, Dusty Talbert and Chris Thornton

Now, usually when I do these, I like to have a small, a middle, and a large size builder. In this case, I just got three behemoths, which is awesome. So, if you're a small builder, some of this stuff may not necessarily directly apply to you, but we'll see if we can make it do so. So, if I could just get a quick elevator pitch of who you are, what you do, where you're at.

Chris Thornton: Sure. Chris Thornton. I'm the VP of Digital Marketing and Technology [00:02:00] at Ashton Woods. We are one of the largest private builders in the country. We build in 15 markets. We build about 10,000 homes a year. We have two brands that we manage. We have the Ashton Woods brand, which is really kind of focused on, you know, being the design leader in the space. And then, Starlight Homes, which is really our entry level, first-time home buyer, brand.

Dusty Talbert: Dusty Talbert, The Providence Group. We are a home builder local here to the Atlanta market for the past 20 plus years. We are a local luxury home builder with a wide variety of product types. We do condos, townhomes, and your traditional single-family detached. We hover around the 500 homes a year mark.

Jamie Godwin: Jamie Godwin with Kolter Homes. We build in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, and new to Alabama. We're mostly in the 55-plus age-targeted market. Cresswind is our 55-plus brand.

Kevin Weitzel: So, before we get on this next subject, I'm going to ask for some audience participation. And this one is one where you have to do a little soul searching, a little [00:03:00] mind calculation, and just to see if this applies to you. How many of you work for a builder that based on your income, you can't personally in today's market afford to buy one of the homes that you sell? Is there anybody that's honest?

We've got some solid hands in the room. Okay. I can tell you in the Harley Davidson world, it's almost everybody on the Harley Davidson lot. They all drive these old rusty broken down motorcycles while they're selling 10, 20, 30, and $40,000 bikes to their clients. But anyway, so let's look at a couple of these factors. Recently, and I don't have my, uh, sources in front of me. I have notes, but no sources. Since 2020, the American dollar has devalued roughly 14%. Calculating inflation, not even including what tariffs have done so far, and will have some trailing effect on, it's more like a 20% devaluation of the buying power of the dollar.

You factor that in with inflation, with tariffs, trade complexity, payroll, interest rates, and the list goes on of things that [00:04:00] affect affordability or attainability. All of these factors affect every single home builder out there, except for maybe those building those multi-billion dollar homes for the top one of 1%. So, let's start with Chris. As a marketer in general, what are your feelings of how this crunch is affecting your business, and are you able to adjust your messaging to accommodate for that?

Chris Thornton: Sure. I mean, obviously, they kind of affect everybody in this room to some degree. You know, and I think we've all felt it in different aspects of the business and different parts of what we do, whether that's from the product to the marketing, to the sales side, to operations across the board.

I think most importantly, like it affects the buyer because it's in the news a lot, and it changes consumer perspective of what they want to do. Interest rates probably being the biggest one, where, for those of us that refinanced their home back during COVID and got the two-point half percent, you're probably not moving anytime soon. I'm probably living in my house forever at this point. But [00:05:00] that type of news certainly kind of changes buyers' perspectives and puts a lot of people on the sidelines that maybe wouldn't be otherwise.

The good part of that, I think, from a messaging side and what we can do as builders has probably been, it does create a bit of a competitive advantage for new build over resale, and it does give us an opportunity to be more creative with the types of programs that we put together, the ways that we can go to market. In a lot of places, you know, new build can be the only game in town. And so, it also gives us opportunities to kind of, again, build programs that help us kind of meet that place of affordability.

But again, I think it's also, it's a closing technique, right? A lot of the things that we're gonna wind up doing and using, it's still important to kind of remain true to the tenets of the brand. You know, remember why people are looking for you in the first place, and make sure that your messaging is kind of while creating that urgency and maybe demystifying some of that process that we're still focused on, kind of why they're looking for your brand in the first place. [00:06:00]

Kevin Weitzel: You know, you brought up a closing, something that a salesperson can utilize as a leverage tool. Are any of you offering, in your marketing messaging, discounts or incentives up front, or are you along the philosophy of we're selling homes, not discounts or incentives?

Dusty Talbert: We've got a little bit of a unique approach there. So, we'll do a discount. We have incentives that we offer. We'll do them on select homes. We like to have like a home of the month. So, we have kind of that low-cost leader in a community that kind of drives traffic to the neighborhood rather than market purely just rate alone, because sometimes it's hard to equate what is that rate gonna get me. And then from there, it allows our sales team to really have the conversation about monthly affordability. It shifts the conversation from discount to value because they're really looking for that monthly mortgage amount. So, it helps shift the conversation that way.

Jamie Godwin: We've tested messaging leading with value and incentives and find that it's not really what drives our sales or our registrations on the marketing side, [00:07:00] but it is a great tool for sales to make someone feel more comfortable with moving forward with the contract. So, we're using it more as getting someone off the fence versus leading with that in our marketing messaging.

Kevin Weitzel: I can tell you because I surf all the home builder websites, not all of them, there's like 40,000 websites, but I surf a lot of websites out there just to see what the messaging is, and I do see a lot of incentives and discounts just being pushed as the major focus sometimes on their landing, their homepage. And I personally think that's a mistake. Similar sentiment up here or?

Chris Thornton: Yeah. I think, kind of interesting part of it, nobody wants to buy a 4, 9, 9 rate. They want to buy a house, right? And so it's like, how do you wait? You know, there is this need to create that urgency. It's become kind of a table stakes thing. It is a little bit, I think, long-term term probably, damaging to our industry that there is as much focus on it as there is right now, but I do think it's important that you've got to still remember the first thing is you've got to make them fall in love with the home. They've got to fall in love with the community. They've got to fall in love with you as a [00:08:00] brand. Then, make sure that you have those tools available to sort of help close the deal.

Kevin Weitzel: So, Dusty, being that you're on the luxury builder side of things, all the factors that have kind of hit the market with affordability, is it less of an issue for you guys, or are you still feeling a little bit of that pinch as well?

Dusty Talbert: For a little while it was less of an issue, but here lately it's started to affect us for sure. So, that's why you've seen us shift that marketing message in a different direction, where it's not just, Hey, we're going to slash prices by $50,000 or more. It's, Hey, we do have incentives out there. Let's have that price there that drives the people in the door. And then, let's really talk about a way to back you into the monthly payment that you really want to have. Because we're selling more than just homes. In most cases, we're selling lifestyles. So, we want to make sure that they fall in love with the community, the area, the plan itself, and then we can talk numbers and get them where they want to be.

Kevin Weitzel: So, speaking of lifestyles, Jamie, because you do a lot of 55-plus, active adult.

Jamie Godwin: Yeah, 55-plus, age-targeted, whatever you want to call it.

Kevin Weitzel: I'm almost 55 plus, so I'm right there. I'll start getting offended. But your active adult product, do you [00:09:00] find that these factors are coming as much into play, or do you have the benefit of seniors or active adults seeking lifestyle more so than worrying about the final bottom line?

Jamie Godwin: Affordability is a factor for active adults, but that doesn't mean you lead with incentives. You still have to present a value of what you're selling, your floor plan livability, the rich lifestyle experiences. And once you can demonstrate that you offer something that does offer a value to them, just like what Dusty said, that demonstrates the value, that's when you can start talking numbers. And then find an incentive that works for what they're trying to accomplish, but not lead with, Oh, we have a rate buydown. You can get in at 3.9. Just doesn't work for us.

Kevin Weitzel: All right. Show of hands, people, we got a little series of them. Is your messaging leading off with any aggressive incentives? Anybody? A few. And again, this is going to vary from market to market. A lot of us are from the southeast here, but, uh, it really truly does matter what market you're in, whether you have to do that or not. What about price cuts? [00:10:00] Who's had some aggressive price cuts so far this selling season this year? Anybody? Couple, couple.

What about rate buy downs? Are you leading with rate buy-downs, or you just have that as something that you use as a leverage tool? Leading with, anybody? Okay. All right. And then what about closing cost assistance? Anybody leading with that as a, you know, you get 25,000 cash toward close or, or you just, again, using that as a leverage point? Anybody leading with it? Alright, so what about lead generation? There's a multitude of widgets, companies that offer gadgets, and promising leads. Some are more effective than others. Some that offer volume, others that offer more effective quality of leads. What are you finding is paramount, Chris?

Chris Thornton: Well, and for us too, like we've done some things over the years where we've invested a lot kind of in the marketing attribution side. We put a lot of effort in kind of creating and have created sort of a, what we call a multi-touch positional attribution model. We're looking at all the touch points, right? Like a lot of folks probably use, you know, like a last click [00:11:00] attribution model where you're looking at what was the last thing that drove this lead in there. Great. I'm going to give that all the credit. Where we've tried to, you know, kind of evaluate it more along the life cycle of that customer.

And so, in terms of like particular tactics and tools, I mean, it varies a lot. It can vary by community, it can vary by geographic, you know, division, and things like that. The important thing for us is to kind of be able to look at that attribution and understand. As we look at like the velocity of sales, right? For those of you that have been in the business for a while, you can probably remember it was a lot easier to get a lead. People would come in the door, and then it would take forever to buy.

It's kind of the flip flop now, right? Like people will start looking months, if not years, before they actually even give you information. And then when they hit the door, they're a buyer. Like they're ready to go. What that means, though, is that there's a lot more touch points before you ever really know who they are. So, being able to kind of understand the value of each one of those touches, the rationale and the reason why it's happening, what it's [00:12:00] doing, how it's impacting the business, is super important.

But like I said, for us, like we have spent a lot of time, money, effort sort of building that out. For those of you that don't have that type of system, I know, like the Audience Town guys, I've seen their stuff. That would be a great place to start. But we find that to be super valuable as we go through this process, and we're constantly sort of evaluating where are the opportunities to increase the volume, where are the opportunities to drive efficiency?

Kevin Weitzel: So, all builders and all marketers with building companies they have their bag of tricks. They have their tried and true things that have worked year after year after year, season after season. Jamie, without naming any specific company names, do you have any tools that you used to use that are just no longer effective anymore?

Jamie Godwin: We're seeing a drop in organic traffic. I know that's not quite what you're asking, but we have seen a drop in organic search. So, we're not getting as many hard registrations as we used to. So, we have had to pivot within the last year. So, we've done more OSC [00:13:00] training so that they're able to have better tools to convert softer leads, like brochure registrations. And then, we've used service like Commversion and they've been great in helping us generate more warm leads from our website.

Kevin Weitzel: A sponsor.

Jamie Godwin: They have been awesome. So, if you're not, I would say have a conversation with them because it's worth investigating. It's been worth it for us. It's been a year now, we've been using them. They've been helping us generate more leads from our website that we've kind of fallen short with, with organic and with those hard registrations. Like, I want to schedule a tour for tomorrow. Get me in.

Kevin Weitzel: Dusty, how about from your end? Are you seeing that same lag of when people are willing to give their information or just a general lead? And follow up to that. Do you have a tool, especially at the luxury builder side, that is just off the table, you're not using it anymore?

Dusty Talbert: Yeah. No, for us, I was talking to a lot of people at our round table, we're a little weird when it comes to lead volume, and Jamie totally agrees now with me. We get more walk-in traffic than we do lead volume, which this is the only builder I've been at [00:14:00] in the last 16 years where that's been the case.

So, it seems like, you know, to Chris's point, there's so many more touch points until they cross your threshold. We're trying to work on some of that multi-touch attribution stuff to figure a lot of that stuff out. But by the time they come into the door, they've done so much research, they're further down the funnel, which is great. There's been plenty of sources out there that can give you plenty of leads, but I would focus on quality.

Kevin Weitzel: It's no secret, I'm a little weird, and I'm one of those people that I want to talk to the salesperson. I want to see their A game, I want to hear their sales pitch. I'll jump their hoops to listen to what they have to tell me, but I know I'm a weirdo. So, Chris, how much farther down the funnel are your, Starlight and your Ashton Woods buyers, how much farther down the funnel are they getting before they're willing to literally hand over their information?

Chris Thornton: I mean, it's pretty far, actually. Like, at least again, in our experience, it's something we've tracked, right? Like, so, we're looking at, and even kind of in reverse, when we get buyers or folks come in, and then we're able to, in a lot of cases, look back at what their journey has been. [00:15:00] My Black Ops is my favorite part of the job of doing that part. But like, you know, where you're looking back at kind of their internet history and seeing all the things that they've done and all the times we've interacted with them through that. We're just seeing the speed of that is taking forever before they're giving us that information. Even like for our Starlight brand, there are times when people literally, the day they come is the day they buy. It's a same-day contract. So, we're seeing that kind of speed on that first time entry level, and we're seeing a much shorter window on the Ashton side, so it's part of it.

Kevin Weitzel: So, they're literally walking in and saying, Nice to meet you. I do.

Chris Thornton: Amazingly, yes.

Kevin Weitzel: That's better than 90-Day Fiance. Alright, so not all campaigns are successful. We all know that we've put some out there that we're like, this is going to be a home run, and it is an absolute dud. Jamie, what is your process in determining, are you A/B testing? Are you finding out that, Hey, this just is not working. We're going to cut it out, stop doing it, full stop. What is your process?

Jamie Godwin: Try not to make knee-jerk [00:16:00] reactions to things because sometimes something doesn't look like it's working on a certain metric level, but the second you pull money from this, you'll notice a drop in that. So, my boss, we always talk about the fruit basket approach, where you have to have a variety of things in your fruit basket and then analyze how they're all working together. So, that is more our approach rather than just doubling down on one thing just because a particular metric says it makes sense.

Kevin Weitzel: Gentlemen?

Dusty Talbert: I would agree with that. And to piggyback, you can always refine things that you're currently working on. That arc working right now doesn't mean it's not going to work. It just means maybe you need to take a slightly different approach, do some additional A/B testing, and let it run its course.

Chris Thornton: The knee-jerk comment is a good one for sure. Sometimes you have to tweak and modify slightly. But the most important, believe the data. That is probably the biggest trap, I guess, I see to fall into is you got really excited about this idea and you're like, I'm going to try it [00:17:00] and we're going to do this. And then, you're going to spend a long time trying to rationalize why, well, it worked. Not exactly like we thought, but it worked. It was good and we're going to keep doing it. Believe it. Believe the information. If you have good data, and I know there's been a few folks that have talked about that. If you've captured good data, if you've got good analytics, you can believe it and make decisions based on it. That, I think, is probably the most important piece.

Kevin Weitzel: So, speaking of data, how are all three of you tracking your ROI? You know, when you put a spend out there, you know, obviously you can look at how many homes did we sell and, you know, reverse the math out and look at per home, per spend. But what metrics are you looking at on a regular basis? We'll start with you, Chris. We'll work our way this way.

Chris Thornton: Sure. I mean, kind of going back to what we were talking about before with our multi-touch sort of attribution. We'll kind of weigh those different touch points along the journey, and evaluate based on the sales that come in. So, for all of our sales, we're looking at, okay, how many times did we touch this buyer? How much did it cost? And then again, the last click might have been Google, but [00:18:00] that's not going to get all of the credit. We're also going to give credit to these other things. And then over time, we're able to kind of evaluate this is what it cost us to get those leads.

You know, there's also kind of the evaluation that we have to do, always, of not every community, not every division is built equally. Son, depending on, you know, it can cost a lot more to drive a sale in one market than it can another. And you know, just having that ability to kind of evaluate that and compare those divisions at times to understand, like who's outperforming, who's underperforming, and then dive into the data to figure out why.

Dusty Talbert: For us, multitouch is where we want to go because we know that, you know, the last click model that we have in place right now does not tell the full story. It just tells you what's the last thing that they converted with. And because we have such a lower lead volume compared to walk-in traffic, we're very heavily reliant on accurate data from the sales team. So, it's one of those deals where there's constant communication with the sales team every single week about here's the places that they can find us, making sure that they incorporate those into their discovery [00:19:00] conversations so we can get as much data as possible.

Jamie Godwin: Cost per first visit is really what we lean into. But then we drill down to different campaign levels because the way you would look at the success of a Meta campaign is not the same as paid search. So, we're also looking at cost per impression and cost per conversion. But the highest level is cost per first visit.

Kevin Weitzel: And vanity metrics? Garbage?

Jamie Godwin: Yeah, kind of for us.

Dusty Talbert: Same. You can always spend more to drive more physical traffic to your site. Doesn't mean they're qualified buyers.

Kevin Weitzel: Alright. So, we're going to have some fun right here. We're going to watch the whole audience, and what we're going to watch for is on this next question. If we have any Lasso or Homebuilder Ops people in here, I know that builders of this size all have a CRM, and I'm pretty sure that you manage it with a very heavy fist and make sure that all the data that comes in there. You hold salespeople's feed to the fire. I see some grins, so maybe that might not be the case, but I'm pretty sure it is.

How many of you builders do not have an active CRM in place? We're looking for honesty. And [00:20:00] I know there's a few of you because I talked to one today. Anybody, anybody? One, two, three, four. All right. Sorry, ECI and Lasso. They're not in the market. There's only four people here, at least for right now. But anyway, how active is your marketing team in, not necessarily overseeing, but actively communicating with the sales team, to review those metrics?

Dusty Talbert: I would say we're fairly active. It's definitely more the directors of sales that monitor their teams respectively because they're the ones who are in the system every single day doing that. But we have to make sure that sales and marketing are joined at the hip. It's a very collaborative relationship because we're very codependent on each other. We need good data from them, and they need qualified traffic from us. You can't really have one without the other.

Jamie Godwin: Yeah. We're working on breaking down the silos because right now, marketing and sales we are a bit siloed. We're kind of restructuring marketing team, where we're hiring regional marketing managers so that we can get the feet on the street feedback from the sales team [00:21:00] that gets delivered to the corporate office. It's been a struggle, but we're working on it.

Kevin Weitzel: So, you bring up something interesting. How often is it that the corporate office dictates what all the divisions do, versus do you give autonomy to your divisions to make those kind of decisions? That's probably more for you two.

Chris Thornton: Sure. Well, especially, and just because, as it relates to the CRM side too specifically, but we're kind of in a unique position, maybe, I think. As a builder, like we're very close with our sales team. We're kind of buddies, so there's less of the contention that you sometimes see between marketing and sales. Very uniquely to us, I think, our whole CRM platform is kind of architected, managed, and built, and maintained by my team. So, marketing is driving the CRM side of it for the sales team. So, we work pretty closely with them in terms of how to use a CRM. I mean, we've taken very much an approach of, you know, marketing's job is to support sales.

And so, we have built a ton [00:22:00] of things that, like, what can we do to make their job easier right on the front line? Like, what can we do to make them more efficient? How do we make it easier? How do we help them find sales? What other data can we provide them that's going to bring it to life? The flip side of that coin is it's given us a lot of insight into what's working with that sales team and gives us more, I think, transparency to be able to go to them and go like, you know, here is a problem in the sales performance. We're driving the right amount of leads for this neighborhood. There's a conversion issue at the neighborhood. What can we do to change it?

Kevin Weitzel: How about this? What about your internal versus external team? How often do you have to really nail down, am I going to try to take care of this all internally, or am I going to hire an outside company? What is your process into vetting, especially in today's day and age, where everybody under the stars is promising that they're connected to AI, when sometimes they don't even know what it means? As we know, some people call it A1. So, how are you vetting these various vendors and determining whether you're [00:23:00] going to keep it internal versus external? We can start with Chris.

Chris Thornton: Yeah. I mean, again, I think for us, we have a pretty technical bench for a marketing team. When I first got into marketing, I was told there'd be no math on this test and that turned out to be, that turned out to be a lie. So, but anyway. So, we built like this, very like strong techno, and we don't really have a deep like IT department, right? So, it's kind of been one of those things where just by the sheer nature of where our side of the business is going, we've just over the years created a lot of bench strength on this.

Which has helped us to kind of, in many cases, the main things we look at when we're looking at outside vendors is, can they do it better than us, and can they do it faster than us? And so, like we're looking at those two things frequently and evaluating. And again, just kind of being honest of, based on the ROI and the costs and what's the investment, what would it take us to build it, what would it take us to buy it? What's the trade-offs?

Kevin Weitzel: Dusty, I'm going to skip you on purpose. I'm coming back to you. How about your team?

Jamie Godwin: Time investment for the team is a huge factor. And [00:24:00] also, do they solve a real problem we're having now, or is this just a nice to have thing? Those are kind of the two factors that we look at. We rely on agencies quite a bit. One of the struggles we have, you kind of lose your brand voice if too many agencies have their hands in writing everything for you. So, then that is another layer that has to be managed as well, reigning in the voice to make sure it's still consistent with your brand.

Kevin Weitzel: So, brand consistency. Obviously, consistency is king. We've heard that on multiple speakers, tables here. What about your control over that? I mean, do you hold the feet to the fire, so to say, for those various vendors, or do you have to kind of ebb and flow with the way they operate?

Jamie Godwin: A little bit of both, really. I mean, you have to have a balance. And then there's also the agencies predate almost everybody on the marketing team. So, they've been with the company longer than most of us have been. So, they're a good historical source of the company voice, but sometimes don't [00:25:00] always evolve as much as we need them to with the direction that we want to go. So, the time investment sometimes in helping your agencies get to where you want to be is greater than just doing it in-house. So, it's a balance that we're always factoring.

Kevin Weitzel: So, Dusty, here's where I'm coming back to you, buddy. I can guarantee that you build less homes than these two people here. Pretty much guarantee it being a luxury builder. So, what is your answer to the owner of the company, the principal, the brass, so to say, when they come to you and say, I have this niece and she loves doing social media. She's really good at it. She can build a website. Oh man, she's so good. What is your answer to that? Because there is a right answer, but I just want to see where you're coming at with this.

Dusty Talbert: I embrace it wholeheartedly every time. Um, I've legit had that happen multiple times. We actually just had an intern, gosh, probably like two months ago, who's still in college. He's at TCU. Wasn't a niece of the owner or anything like that, but she was very close with [00:26:00] our COO, and I was like, oh, come on, man. Like interns. It's going to be short-lived. It's going to be two weeks here, make some progress, and then we're back at square one. But she was fantastic. It's really opened the eyes, and we talked a lot about social media earlier today, that it's really the new way to search. You're going to catch so many people in the awareness phase through social, so it's been proven now that it's really more of a full-time gig. So, that's an area of need for us right now.

Kevin Weitzel: Hear that. Anybody looking for a new job? Boom.

Dusty Talbert: Hit me up. Find me after.

Kevin Weitzel: What about you two? I mean, I know you're much larger, but obviously, do you ever get the principal that comes in and says, Hey, give Carl a chance here. He needs a little help. He needs a job. Unqualified. Carl's as qualified as I am.

Chris Thornton: Yeah, I mean, we do have referrals and recommended people, like someone you've worked with in the past or potentially a relative, things like that. We've got a couple of things, I feel, like as an organization. You know, we've got sort of a defined set of values that I feel like that we use as kind of a guidepost of [00:27:00] this is what we expect of everybody on our team. This is what we expect of everybody at our company. Can they do that? Again, try and make it as objective as possible. So, certainly, if someone comes and says, Hey, you know, can you interview this person? But I also feel like we have the autonomy to go. We did interview them, and we have someone that's better, and they can seek excellence elsewhere, so.

Kevin Weitzel: So, for you, smaller builders, or much smaller companies, 10, 15 homes a year, I think there is an answer to not having to hire Susie or Timmy. But one thing you have to realize is how much money does it cost you in leads, how much money does it cost you in conversions by having that unqualified person do that job versus somebody that is qualified, whether they're an employee or whether it's an outside service. You know, does everybody kind of agree that it's going to cost you big bucks? Alright, so Chris, with a company the size of your company, with Ashton Woods, and the fact that you guys are practically coast to coast, how do you keep all of your divisions on task?

Chris Thornton: Again, at least from the [00:28:00] marketing and sales side, I'll speak, you know, kind of more specifically to that. But I do think, again, going back to the fact that we're responsible and kind of managing the whole CRM platform kind of end to end has been a really helpful way in doing that. It's helped us kind of bring that additional insight and value to the sales team in their performance and helping them sort of see in the data, here's what works, here's what doesn't. Here are the KPIs. If you're hitting these numbers, you're going to be fine. You're doing all the right things. If you're not, then let's talk about how do we build an improvement plan to get you there. We've built that trust with the sales team, so they know like we're only there to help. And if we're giving them bad news, it's because we're trying to help them. So, that seems to be the best way.

Kevin Weitzel: I know you're more regional, but I mean, how hard is it to manage the various divisions?

Jamie Godwin: It is difficult, and our regional marketing managers definitely make it easier for us in corporate. One of the things that marketing really has to do is prepare the sales team for what is [00:29:00] being promoted out there. Because there's nothing worse than when somebody walks into a sales office and says, Oh, I saw your TV commercial, and then the salesperson has a blank stare because they have no idea what the customer is talking about. So, there has to be communication, so that the sales teams know exactly what's out there in the wild, what their customers are saying.

Same thing with website updates. Sometimes in the marketing side, we'll make updates to the website and then not necessarily tell the sales teams. Sales teams are using a kiosk. So, it's important to get your salespeople to use the website because that's their customer's sandbox and their operating environment. And if they're only using a sales kiosk and never going to the website, there's going to be a big disconnect with how they help their customers. So, it's important to connect with your sales teams to ensure that they're also on the website too.

Kevin Weitzel: What about jargon? You know, when you have your marketing people that call them, you know, lots or specs. The average buyer might not even know what that means. Obviously, a lot of them do, but do you have anything in [00:30:00] place to try to get rid of some of that internal jargon and force it on your salespeople and your marketing team to use everyday terms?

Jamie Godwin: For us, we lead more into storytelling on the sales side. So, rather than offering a list of all of the different ways you can update this floor plan or change this floor plan, we ask discovery questions like, Would a bonus room give you space for overnight visits with your grandkids? And then that would lead into a bigger conversation about what they're looking for in a floor plan without using bonus rooms, flex space, you know, these sort of lists.

Dusty Talbert: Yeah. Everything from the marketing side, there is really just messaging and trying to use consumer-friendly terminology that makes sense. So, you're not going to put giant lists of specs on your website because no one's going to know. They might know what that is, but quick move in homes, using consumer-friendly terminology, is going to go a long way in that.

Kevin Weitzel: Do you ever use the spin of, we build luxury homes, you don't have to live next to a guy that looks like Kevin. You ever use that?

Dusty Talbert: I [00:31:00] haven't used that one yet.

Kevin Weitzel: Feel free to.

Dusty Talbert: You're giving me some good ideas.

Kevin Weitzel: I'll loan you my likeness. Chris, how about you? Have you, uh, eradicated some of the jargon from the everyday use?

Chris Thornton: Yeah, I mean, it's obviously always a challenge to some degree, and it takes a lot of just sort of constant, you know, reminders. We have so much training, and we've built similar, it sounds like sales processes to Jamie. But we're kind of guiding them through, giving them sort of ways to kind of guide the conversation and hopefully try and avoid that. When we do see it happening, it is just an opportunity to kind of coach and improve it. It usually shows up in the performance, so you'll see it quickly. As you sort of identify, hey, this might be the issue. It's just another coaching moment. Again, frequent communication is sort of

Kevin Weitzel: Let's talk about differentiation. Obviously, being a luxury builder, you can determine that you use, I know Subzero and Wolf appliances, and you know, Brazilian wood that was chopped down by children in the rainforest. Who knows what you have, but you can use those things. But for an average production builder, how do you separate? You're still selling a rectangle built out of two-by-fours and installation. Jamie, how do you [00:32:00] differentiate your brand versus all the other builders that are out there?

Jamie Godwin: We offer a highly personalized experience, personalization beyond packages. And then we also offer a rich lifestyle experience. We have the philosophy that your home and community is the backdrop for the way you want to live. That mentality is incorporated into the marketing process, the sales process, and also carried into design, into construction, into warranty, and into lifestyle. Because your experience with Kolter Homes doesn't stop after you close on your home, it continues through the lifestyle, making sure that's consistent as well.

Kevin Weitzel: Chris?

Chris Thornton: Yeah, I think for us, the main thing is really understanding who your customer is, right? And if you understand who the customer is. Don't try to be all things to all people. I'd love to sell everybody, and we will sell all of you a home if you would like. But we know who our target audience is, and we go and build and try to not boil everything down to the lowest common denominator. We focus on this is our target. Every one of these people, if they're in the [00:33:00] market to buy a home, should buy our home. If someone else wants to, great. But this is who we're going to focus on. That's going to be the primary focus.

Kevin Weitzel: So, with disruptions and labor scarcity and shifting regulations, on the high end of the spectrum, Dusty, do you find that you have to shift your marketing messaging? Somebody's coming to you for a $4 million house. They don't want to hear that you're going to be six months behind. So, how are you conveying that messaging to your potential buyers, or are you making a change for that?

Dusty Talbert: It hasn't really affected me on the marketing side a lot, which is great. I welcome that. I'm not going to jinx myself, hopefully. You know, on the sales side, it's certainly just remaining, you know, constant communication throughout the buying cycle. People are going to buy homes and stay under contract with people that they trust. So, you continue to build that trust through open communication and setting realistic expectations.

Kevin Weitzel: Chris, do you have divisions that come back to you guys at the corporate office saying, Hey, we're struggling. We can't get enough starts going because of labor supply. Are you having to readjust messaging, or is it regional, or is it just blanket?

Chris Thornton: Yeah, [00:34:00] similar, I would say, to what Dusty's saying, but like for us, it doesn't really impact the marketing side as much. We haven't really had to change messaging over it, but I think it's been a lot of like more operational changes that we've made to try and support them when those issues have come up. You know, I guess that if the last five years have taught us anything, it's sort of expect the unexpected and just, you know, be prepared to be nimble. And so, that's sort of the way we've approached it.

Kevin Weitzel: As many of you know, I've avoided AI for a reason. I want one of my last questions to be, on a scale of one to 10, one being what's ai and 10 being we are masters of our domain of AI, what level and score would you give your company for implementation and monitoring?

Jamie Godwin: I'll go with a five.

Kevin Weitzel: Five's healthy.

Dusty Talbert: Five, sixish. I'm not going to go with the whole six, seven nonsense. I've got kids, man. Like I hear it all the time. So, kind to throw it out there.

Chris Thornton: We're probably about a seven and a half.

Kevin Weitzel: And have you found anything specifically that is just hands down, you absolutely need to put this into your [00:35:00] repertoire today?

Chris Thornton: We were kind of early adopters to it, so we're using it in a lot of different ways. I think everybody in this room, I imagine at this point, is using some sort of generative AI for like content and all that kind of stuff. So, we've incorporated that in tools and that sort of thing. You know, for us, it's been a lot of that sort of data analysis that has been super helpful. And then where we're starting to even see just more operational efficiency is on coding, building things with it, which has been amazing. Kind of early in that process, but I think it's pretty impressive some of the things that we've been able to do in a real short amount of time that would've taken us probably months to do with before.

Kevin Weitzel: Dusty, any standouts for you?

Dusty Talbert: I'm going to have to revise my score. I mean, dang. I'd love to get there. The low-hanging fruit for us is using it for probably what most of us in the room use it for is its copywriting. So, we'll use it for social content, website content, email ad copy, subject lines, all that stuff. But we know it's only as powerful as the person that's prompting it. We have to make sure that we do [00:36:00] a good enough job there and then always wordsmith it after you get it back so that you make sure there's a human touch to it too.

Jamie Godwin: Yeah. I think AI has turned us all into really great editors. But it's sort of like this constant companion that's helping you throughout the day. It's like your assistant, but then you have to edit everything. But we actually, at the beginning of the year, had an AI conference at Kolter to just make sure we were incorporating it intelligently into the company and using it where it was important to use, but safely. So, we're still working through integrating it into all levels, but we're using it at all levels in the company.

Kevin Weitzel: I've seen some side-by-side photographs, a final model, home rendering, an AI-produced rendering, and with the right prompts, it's getting there. It will be hitting sometime within my lifetime. No, within the next two to three years, all day long, builders can circumvent the conventional rendering stylist and go right to just AI. Put in your prompts, your materials, and it'll spit you out the rendering that you'd want present to your [00:37:00] buyers in a photoreal quality too. It's getting very, very good. So, Susie and Timmy, you're all three forced to hire on somebody's nephew or niece, but they do show some promise. What advice would you give them if they want to follow in your footsteps in the marketing world? And we'll go ahead and start with Chris.

Chris Thornton: So, probably the most obvious, I've talked a lot about technology today, but I'm a marketer at heart. I have a marketing degree. That was what I wanted to do. I thought I was going to be Don Draper when I got out of school, but two things. Don't be afraid of technology. It's going to become only more important to our roles and what we do, and it's just an integral part of how we do it. And the other thing is, don't be afraid to look at something and say, Well, that's not my job. That's frequently a thing that, like I know my team is really good at, is identifying issues that maybe are way outside of our scope and the things that we're supposed to be doing, but we think we have a solution, we think we can help. And so, we jump in and we do it. [00:38:00]

Kevin Weitzel: Dusty, got anything for the niece and nephew, and or your kids as they come up?

Dusty Talbert: Yeah, we'll see. Yeah. Two things, really. I mean, one, it's kind of a piggyback on what Chris is saying. The world of marketing is always evolving, so being a student of the industry, a student of your buyer and your brand, and just kind of riding that wave and learning new tricks along the way. And at the same point, we all know that everything's not going to work. So, we used to always use the terminology fail forward. So, if you're not trying new things, you're going to get stagnant and probably left behind. But use those as learning experiences to refine and perfect along the way.

Kevin Weitzel: Jamie?

Jamie Godwin: My recommendation would be to tell your boss what you want your career to look like so that your boss can make sure they're exposing you to the projects and experience to get you there, and then be coachable.

Kevin Weitzel: Coachable. That's a big one. Coachable. Be a sponge. Make sure that you're always willing to learn something new. No matter how old you are, always be willing to learn that new stuff, because just because you're a dinosaur, like I'm becoming, it doesn't mean that you can't learn all these new tricks. There's YouTube [00:39:00] videos on how to do everything. So, Chris, Dusty, Jamie, thank you very much.