Marketing as the Connector: How Builders Align Teams, Roles, and Results - Mel McLaughlin, Jordan Brown and Meredith Chapman

With 18 years in the home building industry, Meredith serves as the vice president of sales for K. Hovnanian Homes in the Dallas-Fort Worth market, the market we're in. How convenient. Recognized in 2022 for the McSam Award winner and an NAHB Award winner for sales manager and leader of the year, and named Builder Magazine's 40 under 40, Meredith is known for delivering results while leading with integrity, optimism, and accountability.

She set high expectations, believes deeply in people, and creates environments where growth is demanded, but support is never optional. In addition to her executive role, Meredith has also served as a chair for the PWB in the Dallas Council, as well as affiliated with the Dallas Builders Association. And beyond her professional achievements, Meredith is a devoted mother to a [00:02:00] beautiful eight-year-old going on 18. Oh my goodness, Amber Monroe.

Jordan Brown is a recognized leader in the home building industry with over 21 years experience in sales and marketing executive leadership. He's recognized as a gold winner in the NAHB for Sales Manager Leader of the Year in 2026. Ayo. And was honored with the 2025 Dallas Builder Dealers Association Sales Director of the Year. This designation was part of his Professional Builders 40 under 40 category.

As director of sales and marketing for Graham Hart Builders, also here in the Dallas-Fort Worth market, he has built a team of high achievers, rolled out operational systems, and brought on nationally recognized partners to scale units and revenue while fostering and featuring a culture of trust and accountability.

As part of Jeff Shore's alumni roundtable and Chad Sanschagrin's Betterment Circle, Jordan's a firm believer in continuous self-improvement and supporting others in their own achievements. Jordan is also guilty of flying to Phoenix, my hometown, my backyard, and [00:03:00] not calling me for a cup of coffee. That is a crime, I'm telling you.

Mel McLaughlin is a marketing manager for Pacesetter Homes here in Texas and has spent more than a decade working with home builder and in the marketing department. From community launches to brand strategy to event teams, making things work better and to drive results, her experience spans both creative and leadership roles, giving her a unique perspective on how marketing and sales can align to create meaningful business growth.

Throughout her career, she has led award-winning campaigns, coordinated high-profile events, launched new communities, and developed marketing strategies recognized at the local and state and national level. She's passionate about sharing ideas and helping others in the sales and marketing professionals to build stronger brands, better career choices and customer service experiences, and to drive measurable results.

So, let's start off with just a quick 50,000-foot altitude of the company you're with, a little story about the homes you sell, the market you serve, et cetera.

Meredith Chapman: [00:04:00] Okay. K. Hovnanian Homes, we are a publicly traded national home builder here in Dallas-Fort Worth, two major metroplexes. Last two years, you know, we've dropped down in units and deliveries. We're around hovering 500, but quickly growing fast. We'll be back up into that thousand unit delivery here in the next couple years. 18 years of home building. Me, personally, I've been in this role for two and a half years, three years? I don't remember. But I've been at K. Hovnanian for 14 years. This is the only career and job I've ever had since college. Hopefully, I'm in it for the long haul.

Kevin Weitzel: Jordan.

Jordan Brown: Yeah. So, 21 years into the industry. I'm with Graham Hart Home Builder as the director of sales and marketing here in the DFW. We focus primarily in luxury, custom build on your own lot. 31 years in Colleyville is our backyard here in Dallas-Fort Worth.

And so, growing. We'll close out, actually six days left in the fiscal year, and that will close out just shy of 100 homes this year. ASP is about [00:05:00] 760 in our production realm. We're growing that side, and we'll get to about 300 units with Pathway in the next 18 months. Exciting rollercoaster right now.

Kevin Weitzel: And how long with Graham Hart?

Right at three.

Jordan Brown: Mel.

Mel McLaughlin: I have been in this industry a little over 11 years. I've been in this position for about two and a half, and I work with Pacesetter Homes. We are a builder in the DFW market. If you look at a map of DFW and put a clock on it, we are about from 10:00 to 3:00, and those are where our main communities are. We've got single family and two communities with townhomes, so varied product.

Kevin Weitzel: How many homes?

Meredith Chapman: Oh, we will hopefully close over 300. Goal is 351.

Kevin Weitzel: All right, so let's go real easy, light question first. Collaboration. Nobody does their job without having some sort of help, some sort of inspiration. We'll start with you, Jordan. Who do you lean on for, you know, collaborative ideas, whether it be, you know, results, studying results, concepts. Who's your lean to?

Jordan Brown: A lot of friends in this industry. Jeff Shore Alumni Group, there is a group of us that texts, there's five of us that texts [00:06:00] every day, some of them are in the room. Just saying, "Hey, what are you seeing in the market right now? Have you ever experienced this?" And how can I help you in the same. So, there's a lot of collaboration there. Betterment Group, I'm part of that this year as well. It's kind of the same vein in terms of getting to know people who are in your space, and how can you surround yourself with those who know a hell of a lot more about what they're doing than you might, and how can you help them as well.

Kevin Weitzel: Mel?

Mel McLaughlin: So, besides other people outside my organization, I've got a marketing specialist that I work directly with, and I'm always constantly yelling towards her desk and asking her questions and she's asking mine. So, if I could clone her 10 times, I would love that. Somebody needs to figure that out.

Kevin Weitzel: All right, Meredith, who are you leaning on?

Meredith Chapman: Whoo. I lean on our team, my sales team a lot. But more importantly, you'll probably hear me say this a couple times today, I'm really close with my fellow vice president of marketing, Kim. She's in the room. And I think it's important to ensure that just like Jordan and Mel, you have outside assistance and [00:07:00] friends. I'm a very curious human, so I always ask a bunch of questions. So friends, family, what are y'all seeing? How is it feeling in the grocery store checkout?

Kevin Weitzel: All right. Similar vein, but a little different elevation. Instead of a collaboration, who do you look to for inspiration? Maybe not even who, maybe even companies or concepts that people have rolled out. We'll come right back to you.

Meredith Chapman: Super easy for me. I love hospitality. This is really weird. I love hotels. I think they're great, certain hotels. But I also really enjoy studying and watching how I'm made to feel. Not that they owe me anything, but it's an experience. I hope that we model and we try to model off of the experience and the day you have with them, and even just the text you get right when you check in and you're not even in the room yet. So, I enjoy it. Hospitality is a big thing for me.

Kevin Weitzel: Jordan, anything to add to that?

Jordan Brown: There's a bunch of different ways to answer this. I'd say from product and experience, leaning into hero brands like Restoration Hardware, Williams-Sonoma, companies who are not really afraid of [00:08:00] white space and very elevated and very significant in their space in knowing what they want to do. That's an area that I really look up to. Quite frankly, just what is out there trending that is super creative that folks who are doing something that is maybe outside the box and could go viral and is not just mainstream.

Kevin Weitzel: All right. Mel, when you are having a handoff between sales to marketing, marketing to sales, how does that go in your realm, in your circle? Is it smooth? Are there things you would improve?

Mel McLaughlin: I think it's pretty smooth. So, when a lead comes in, especially online, our OSC handles it, and the sales team doesn't get it until that appointment is set, and then even after the appointment's set, the OSC will still check in, make sure they showed, all of that. After that, then it's the sales team. It's their job to keep up with the follow-up and make sure that this is the community they want, this is the floor plan. Like, then it goes deeper with the sales team.

Kevin Weitzel: Does the sales own that follow-up?

Mel McLaughlin: [00:09:00] Yes. Once that appointment has showed, it is their turn.

Kevin Weitzel: Okay. And is that pollinated back and forth? And who's in the driver's seat? Who's wearing the boss hat, marketing or sales?

Mel McLaughlin: That's a good one. It's a little bit of both.

Kevin Weitzel: Keep in mind, most of the people in the audience are in the marketing team, just so you know.

Mel McLaughlin: Yeah. I would like to say yes, it's all marketing, but we have enough hats that sometimes we need to pass that off to sales. I will let the sales managers get onto them.

Kevin Weitzel: How about you, Meredith?

Meredith Chapman: I think we can each have our queen hat, which I love. I think it's very important that we're always owning both the lead. When I hear a bad lead, it's a conclusion. That's just a conclusion. Let's figure out together how to make it work from start to finish. Maybe it's because I have trust issues, so I'm constantly on Kim. Like, "What can we do? What are we going to do now?" So, I think it's both of us. Equal responsibility in collaborating and what works, what doesn't, and not taking it personal.

Kevin Weitzel: Jordan, on the sales lead side, what do you define as a good sales lead, and is your [00:10:00] definition shared by the entire organization?

Jordan Brown: Yeah. So, one of the benefits of my role is I get to work on a lot of high-level projects, but I'm in the field, you know, with the sales team, doing role play, experiencing what they're experiencing out there as well. And so, you know, you say, "How do you manage the sales and marketing and who's responsible?" It's a lot of, okay, if I'm wearing the VP of sales hat, I'm yelling at myself in the mirror as the marketing person, and vice versa. There's a lot of internal conversations that go on. But really it is the responsibility of the salesperson.

Now, at our company, we don't have an OSC, so it's very family atmosphere, very organic. You know, as a lead comes in, what are you doing to pounce on it immediately? Speed the lead, right? And what does that experience look like all the way down from the first touch to follow up that we're helping the sales team create with marketing drip campaigns, different levers that you can pull to get them back in front. And so, it is definitely a team atmosphere when it comes to that.

Kevin Weitzel: So Mel, we've all heard, at [00:11:00] least a lot of us have heard in the marketing side, the sales team will say, "Marketing isn't sending us good leads." Do you hear that? What is your answer to it? And is it campaign specific or is it messaging? Is it team?

Mel McLaughlin: Yes. We hear that all the time. But my first thing is to, okay, let me dig into my analytics and let me see what they're seeing, because if I'm seeing a lot of website traffic, a lot of form fills, and I'm seeing all the behaviors I want to see, okay, great. My marketing is doing my job. Then it goes into digging deeper. Like, what do you mean it was a bad lead? Was it just this one off? Is there a price point? What did they mean it's a bad lead? Because I can't just take it at face value. I need more information. I always want more. Give it to me.

Kevin Weitzel: You're going, like, in FBI style and CIA into the CRM to determine that no, sales isn't doing X or whatever's happening?

Mel McLaughlin: Yes.

Kevin Weitzel: Or where is the ball falling?

Mel McLaughlin: Yeah. First it's a little FBI work, crime scene investigation. And then it's like, okay, they actually did die, or was it a homicide or was it a [00:12:00] burglar? Or I don't know. One of the two.

Kevin Weitzel: Meredith, I can't believe she's talking about your salespeople like that.

Meredith Chapman: I know. We are the drivers. No, I'm kidding. You want the sales perspective when I hear a bad lead.

Kevin Weitzel: When you hear from your sales team, "Hey, they're sending us bad leads." How do you combat that?

Meredith Chapman: First thing I ask is, " Well, what's a bad lead? Is it your opinion that's a bad lead, or is it a consistent pattern?" 'Cause a bad lead's a conclusion. You ask the same questions that they'll just ask, "Well, what do you mean? Is it the home site? What happened? Let's work together." We would dig in. I would ask Kim, "Let's get in analytics. How did many did we get? Is it the time of the year? Is it seasonality? What does it have to do with?"

Ask a bunch of questions to be able to really understand, okay, let's change the campaign. Where are we missing the mark? Are we missing the mark, or is it a one-off or a two-off? And ask those questions. Really make sure we're marrying to each other and communicating with the team. But also, too, there's a gap. What marketing [00:13:00] sees and creates, sales needs to hear, and then we talk about it, and then you execute it.

In tough markets, I think we all in this room can relate, we have tendencies, and we're all stretched thin. We point fingers. "Oh, that's not my job." 'Cause I can tell you right now, I'm not creative at all. I have not a creative bone in my body, but I have somebody who is very creative. And on a larger national scale, we have resources we can broad out, but the biggest thing that may all work and be great and beautiful, but that doesn't mean it's producing results. So, let's tap into being transitioned down, being local, and really have conversations. You just have to communicate.

Kevin Weitzel: Now, at your specific division of K.Hov, does your marketing team and your sales team share the same KPIs?

Meredith Chapman: No. We share the information, but we don't share the same KPIs.

Kevin Weitzel: Okay.

Meredith Chapman: But we are getting there as an organization, but the consultants are measured differently than the marketing team is measured.

Kevin Weitzel: Yeah. Same with you, Mel? [00:14:00]

Mel McLaughlin: Yeah. Everybody's goal is always to get more sales. Now, how I measure if marketing's working is different than I measure how sales are working. But we're all after the same goal in the end.

Kevin Weitzel: When it comes to decision, especially on, like, a new rollout of a new campaign, you know, whether it came from an idea of, "Hey, marketing, can you help us out with this?" and it's coming from sales, or if it's the marketing team coming to sales saying, "What is it we can help you with?" Or, "Here's something we're rolling out. Merry Christmas. You know, get used to it." Who is making those decisions within your organizations? Does it need to lead from one direction, or does it need to be collaborative? We already know Jordan's answer 'cause he's sales and marketing. But Jordan, go ahead. What do you got on that?

Jordan Brown: Yeah. A lot of it honestly starts out in the field. You know, if you are out and listening to your teams and saying, "This comes from K.Hovnanian," is community reviews, getting out and allowing your sales teams, your construction teams to present the CMAs, the strategy, so they can prove to you that they understand the strategy and pricing structure of the community, that they can speak to that.

Let's say we [00:15:00] uncover the fact that something has changed in terms of the lead pipeline coming through, the traffic, the demographic that's coming into the community. You need to know that as quickly as possible so you can pull those levers and change your budgeting. Because Google and Meta ads might work perfectly, flawlessly for a couple of weeks, and then all of a sudden the faucet turns off and it's like, "Oh gosh, what happened?" Right? You've got to be able to rely on the folks who are seeing what's out there, and also your strategic partnerships.

You know, if you're watching GA4 Google Analytics, and your Zillow dashboards, and we use HubSpot, so watching your dashboards with traffic, you know, what's going on with feedback, the notes that are in there. The ability now to pull Claude into HubSpot and be able to produce reports just like that, that's very telling information. And so, that's kind of where it starts. But the ultimate decision is the executive team rallies up, says, "How are we going to do this?" You know, it's not one size fits all. Is one community needing this versus this community across the board? We have a very wide bandwidth of price points at our company, so we have to [00:16:00] be very mindful of that.

Kevin Weitzel: A quick audience poll by show of hands. How many of you have your Claude or your ChatGPT connected to, and mostly Claude because they can connect to your CRM, for lead generation or for analytics? Hold them up a little higher, just so we can see them. So, right about roughly, what do you say, 10, 15%? It's a very, very powerful tool. Could you elaborate just a little bit more?

Jordan Brown: So, let's just say across the division, we want to say, "Hey, we want to target folks specifically who are relocation coming out of state." Doesn't even have to be coming out of state. But you can say, "Hey, give me every single prospect who has relocation as a target word within the notes section." You have to rely on your sales team, obviously, to know that they're putting in discovery question answers into notes.

The more information, the better. It's very similar to SEO. The more that's out there, the more that it can pull from. But then in two seconds it can pull you a report, and let's say all of a sudden you have 15,000 prospective homeowners as, you know, prospects in the system. Well, [00:17:00] okay, now you have 275 extremely great candidates that you can specifically target.

Kevin Weitzel: So, this is more toward Mel. How does a company your size prevent too many cooks in the kitchen?

Mel McLaughlin: Sometimes we don't.

Kevin Weitzel: You don't?

Mel McLaughlin: We do have a very collaborative culture, and so I feel like everybody wants to help, which is also great. But then there does need to be that one person who's the driver and that says, "Okay, we are going this way, and all the ducks need to get in a row."

Kevin Weitzel: Do you have any decisions that you make or any kind of procedure that you want to be able to make that decision with no approval or even communication from sales? Or do you always want that sales input?

Meredith Chapman: No. I have the pleasure of getting to make a lot of decisions by myself. If I go over $1,000 spending limit, then I gotta get approval. But sometimes I'm just like, "Do it."

Kevin Weitzel: So, a little more budget, a little more freedom on budget.

Mel McLaughlin: A little.

Kevin Weitzel: Jordan, when you put on your marketing hat, do you ever just completely ignore sales and say, "This is how it's going to be"?

Jordan Brown: I try to pull them in. I [00:18:00] like getting them involved. If you guys follow our socials, we are able to pull off some things that if I were at a larger company, you would have to send it up before it's sent back down, and then maybe it's not relevant, you know, by the time you wanna roll it out again. But I really encourage our sales team to have, in addition to Graham Hart Home Building branding, their own individual branding. I've seen all of us up here with the sales teams do a great job at that, and it's needed in this market, very relevant. And so, to answer your question, we try to get sales involved in that.

Kevin Weitzel: So Meredith, when it comes to information flow, cause we're kinda getting a general theme here that collaboration is definitely at the top of the market there. But in your organization with information flow, how does that all flow? Is it purely just your weekly, monthly meetings? Is it CRM? Is it your team's communications?

Meredith Chapman: All of the above.

Kevin Weitzel: All of the above.

Meredith Chapman: We now have recently, up until the last six months, have all put everything into the company as an organization. When you are corporate and national, you have guardrails, so we have to fall in line with that. But [00:19:00] we create our own, you know, workflows at the division level to be able to understand, but we do seem to communicate really well in our weekly, in our strategy meetings that we have, of course, with the community reviews. But yes, K. Hovnanian's very good at collecting the data, but making sure we be able to execute and roll that out. It's a lot of conversations.

Kevin Weitzel: Got it. Mel, how does the marketing team learn of things that aren't working right in the field?

Mel McLaughlin: Yeah, we get a lot of Teams messages. But no, they just, they will tell us. They are not afraid to call us at any time, even if it's on our way home from work. They call us, they tell us, and they'll talk.

Kevin Weitzel: So, it's pretty quick.

Mel McLaughlin: Yeah.

Kevin Weitzel: And are you taking it at face value, or are you doing some more research before you follow up? with whatever that issue might be?

Mel McLaughlin: I will take it at face value until I can analyze it, and dig in, and then ask more questions, and then go from there, but I will always listen.

Kevin Weitzel: And then on the sales side, How do [00:20:00] you get feedback to them that makes it easily digestible? Does it have to funnel through you, or can any of the people on your team come back with feedback?

Meredith Chapman: Well, the great thing is it can funnel through me, it can funnel through my area sales manager. But the best part is is that we have a cadence every month. We have a meeting with each community team and marketing separate in addition to our community reviews. So, even if it's virtual, they stay in the model, and Kim is asking these questions.

The marketing team is saying, "How are we feeling? This is the lead you had. What does this look like? Here's your conversion. What events are we doing? What does it look like? This is what we're hearing. This is what we're seeing. This is what we see Graham Hart's doing," wink, wink. You know, "This is what Pacesetter's doing. Let's one up." I'm just kidding. But again, talking, but we do have a consistent cadence with that.

Kevin Weitzel: So, Jordan, since you're on both sides of the fence, I have a specific philosophy on this, but your buyers don't see your org chart. How do you ensure with both of your teams that that buyer experience is out [00:21:00] there and being expressed for all the people in your company?

Jordan Brown: Certainly. It's a mindset, and you have to constantly talk about it and live it out. We've all heard the expression, it's not a banner that's on the wall. It's something that is face forward with your customers and your purchasers and your homeowners, front, middle, and back end of the transaction.

But it's a conscientious decision that you as a company makes, and it's not just the sales team putting on a good show and setting expectations, and then all of a sudden everyone is now under contract, and it's a different experience with a different department. It is very much a, "This is who we're going to be as a brand identity, and we want to provide a refreshing customer journey experience."

And refreshing being the key word, at least for us, is what can we do that is outside of the normal pathway and something that is maybe a fun, exciting milestone that we can provide the families that purchase from us? And it's not selfishly so we can share it on Instagram; it's something that they can take home and live and enjoy and [00:22:00] have for themselves. That's how we look at it.

Kevin Weitzel: Who owns the buyer experience once it converts from a lead to an active selling process? Is it purely in the hands of the sales team?

Jordan Brown: An active selling process. So no, that would be construction, sales, everybody, you know?

Kevin Weitzel: Everybody? Okay.

Jordan Brown: Yeah. There's a lot of, again, pathway that we take them through. There's some hand-holding, some buyers more than others, obviously. But from an educating standpoint to, you know, mortgage financing to this is how we roll so we can get through the front end efficiently through the design gallery experience, or maybe it's, you know, color packages.

Really everyone is involved because our homeowners need to see that the sales and construction teams, out in the field at least at that point, really know how to communicate cohesively. So, they know that they can't just go to their builder and say, "Well, my salesperson told me you could do this." Well, my builder knows better because they're a really great team that works together out there.

Kevin Weitzel: I saw a tiny little head shake over here to my left. And I [00:23:00] don't think it was anything you said specifically. I think It was more question based, but what do you have on that, Meredith?

Meredith Chapman: Everyone owns the buyer experience. I mean, this is how I think of it. I'm a salesperson at heart. As a sales person at heart, naturally, I hear when I think of marketing, you are setting the expectation. You're setting the playing field. You are putting that out there of who we are, this neighborhood, and then it is up to the sales consultant, for me to, in essence, make you feel certainty that you are making the right decision.

And then it is still up to marketing, it is still up to me as a sales consultant, then it moves to construction and operations, and then homeowner services. Oh, by the way, let's not forget that it started with marketing, what we put out there, and the expectation, and I like to use the word, you have your word. I like to, we all have our one word. Promise. We've made a promise. A promise to ensure that they're going to love their home and have a wonderful [00:24:00] happy living. I call it happy living. I love that. It's everybody. I'm a big believer of that. Big believer.

Kevin Weitzel: That is my philosophy, too. Mel, how much does marketing influence what happens after the sale?

Mel McLaughlin: If you've got a happy customer, they're going to be the ones willing to write the reviews. If you've got a bad customer, they're going to be the ones leaving the mean comments on social media. You gotta kind of watch out for that. But as far as influencing them, one thing that we're about to roll out is a new customer experience journey email campaign that the construction manager will click a stage task in BuildPro, and they will get an automated email of, "This is what is to be expected."

So that way, they've got the bare minimum of, "This is what it is," and it's up to sales, construction, the designer, anybody who's meeting to go that extra mile, give them the pickle. What do they need to make that experience great? Because if you've been through the process, the emotional journey doesn't just go up since you wrote the [00:25:00] contract. It's up, it's down, it's stressful, and you've got to ride the wave with the customer.

Kevin Weitzel: Since you mentioned questionnaires, does anybody really give a crap about the results of questionnaires? Or, and that's obviously a facetious question. What is your process of putting it into action, if there is an action from the questionnaires? Do you see red flags? Do you see things that constantly keep coming up that you have to fix? And if so, who do you go to first to make sure that this is going to happen immediately?

Mel McLaughlin: I go directly to my executive team, and I'm like, "This is a problem." Like, "I've got a red flag here." And then it's up to them to disperse the troops.

Kevin Weitzel: And are you doing automated questionnaires, or is this still a voluntarily?

Mel McLaughlin: Yes. More automated than anything.

Kevin Weitzel: And what's your percentage of saturation of people actually filling out the full questionnaire? I didn't prepare you for that question. Do any of you know your saturation rate?

Jordan Brown: I mean, over 60%.

Kevin Weitzel: That's actually good.

Jordan Brown: Yeah. I think average is around 40, 44.

Meredith Chapman: Ours varies.

Jordan Brown: I love that question. Yeah.

Meredith Chapman: It varies.

Kevin Weitzel: All right. So, big [00:26:00] versus little, because we got a big company over here. You know, they're kind of all over the country, and you guys are just in one market. Besides budget and the number of minions that one can have on their team, are there any things that bigger or smaller builders do fundamentally that change how you market? Any of you can take that one.

Meredith Chapman: I guess I'll go first, being the big one. I don't necessarily believe that just because you're bigger, your campaigns are better. So, if we're taking budget out of it, we do have the ability, at a quicker pace, to get a larger scale. It comes with guardrails. It has to, whatever it is, has to work operationally across all of the divisions. In a tough market, sometimes decisions are made, I can see Kim looking at me, decisions are made by corporate that we may not necessarily agree because that's a East Coast decision, is what we like to say. No offense to anybody in the East Coast.

But we're [00:27:00] saturated in a lot of the markets in Texas and Florida, and it may not work. Just because it's working there, it doesn't mean it's necessarily going to work here. So, for the smaller builders, regional builders, you don't necessarily need to copy a national campaign, thinking that it's prettier and bigger and that was a great logo because they had the money to do it. You have closer access to the local people, the true roots of that region. Hone in on that and capitalize on that, 'cause that is what us ,division for the bigger builders, are really starting to do. We're coming with a vengeance, money or not.

Kevin Weitzel: So Jordan, especially being, with a single entity builder, what are some advantages you have over the behemoths over here?

Jordan Brown: Sure. I mean, let's talk pros and cons, 'cause I spent the first 18 years of my career with big nationals before I hopped over to Graham Hart.

Kevin Weitzel: Yeah.

Jordan Brown: And so, let's talk cons really fast. Being with a really small, private builder, you don't have access to all the resources, to be able to delegate out as much work that you [00:28:00] want to get done to be able to affect change immediately. I think every one of us in this room has a list of things in the back of our mind, we're like, "Ugh, I want that done," like everything, all of it, 500 items done now, right? Not realistic. Big nationals is not realistic as well.

Meredith Chapman: That's true for us, too.

Jordan Brown: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, when I'm looking at, okay, the pros of working for a smaller builder, I think I mentioned it already, but being able to just make quick decisions very quickly, and be confident in what we're going to do. And then on the flip side of that, if we want to run with something and say, "Ooh, this isn't working the way that we intended," we can flip on it again, right? Now, you want to be very careful about all of that.

But when you're taking a look, again, budget out of it, on what are your closest friends in the industry doing, you just gotta be mindful, and it's not just small builder versus large builder. It is, hey, what's going on out there? You know, is there rate fatigue? You know, everybody is running rates. How are we going to do something different? I don't think that conversation takes place any differently with [00:29:00] any of us internally. It's just a matter of how are we going to get more than our share that we want, cause it's that competitive spirit that's coming out.

Meredith Chapman: I think it's even asking questions. What are you doing that's working that's different? I was on two round tables today, holler if y'all are in here, and that was like, "What are you doing?"

Jordan Brown: Yeah.

Meredith Chapman: Like, everyone's trying to do something different because we're all doing the same thing.

Jordan Brown: There's no room for ego.

Kevin Weitzel: I beg to differ. There's always room for ego.

Jordan Brown: Except for Kevin. Thank

Meredith Chapman: Maybe for those side burns.

Kevin Weitzel: And some chops, baby. You have to, you have to. Mel, what are things that you wish you could do because you see the K.Hovs of the world, the D.R. Hortons of the world, the larger national and regional builders that you wish you could just wave a magic wand and get started at your company?

Mel McLaughlin: There's some social media campaigns or just essentially large projects that I wish I could just snap my fingers and it's done, but when you run a small team, and we're very lean, and you don't have that bandwidth. We have to do our SEO, we have gotta do our AEO, we have to do all these things, and then it's like, "Oh, [00:30:00] now we need you to come up with 10 new campaign ideas. Oh, now we need you to do this." And it's like, "Okay, I'm still on the other 10 projects you gave me. Hold back."

Kevin Weitzel: This is an optional question, but have any of you had a campaign that you've rolled out or a sales process that you've rolled out that has completely fallen flat on its face, and man, I wish I didn't do that?

Mel McLaughlin: We had a promotion that it had a bunch of choices, and you could do this, you could do that, you could do this, and here, we're going to show you a monthly rate promo, and it was like, the flyer is so complicated. But that's what management wanted, and it was like, "This is going to go bad." And we said it, and it went bad. Because nobody could understand it. The salesperson couldn't talk about it. Marketing couldn't talk about it. But it's what the executive team wanted, and it was like, "Yeah, no, we need to pivot here."

Jordan Brown: I don't know that I had one necessarily go bad, but it wasn't as effective as I thought it would. Is we were in a moment where we were able to, rates were pretty stabilized, and we ran with a guaranteed [00:31:00] rate on build jobs, and we called it the Drop and Lock It, and had a lot of fun with it, and made a splash.

Meredith Chapman: I remember when you did that.

Jordan Brown: Uh-huh. Exactly.

Meredith Chapman: That was a good one.

Jordan Brown: And again, made a splash. The time that it came out, you know, for build job activity that we were trying to spur up, we didn't get as many units, but we found it was actually really telling. So I guess it kind of depends on how you measure success on the folks who did come in and make a decision to purchase and move forward, how they decided to utilize and what that was like as a litmus test for us as a builder to run with that, because it didn't require, you know, a traditional forward. It was something that made us nimble and allowed us to do something in that marketplace.

Kevin Weitzel: We're going to shift gears into measuring value. On the sales side, it's real easy to be like, "Look at those numbers, suckers." You know, it's real easy. But marketers know that a lot of times the brass says, "What is the marketing even doing?" You know? How do you measure your ROI on your campaigns that you do? How do you express that to the team [00:32:00] to present your value and that they don't need to worry about getting rid of marketing the second that the beans start getting thinner?

Mel McLaughlin: I think you've got a camera at my office, 'cause I literally just had to have this conversation with my division president, and it's like, "What is marketing doing?" I'm like, "All these things." But it just comes down to your storytelling and what is your executive actually looking at? Like, do they really care about your website views or this one specific ad conversion? You have to paint the picture of everything that you're doing so that they can understand the terms that they can. 'Cause I am guilty of going too far marketing nerd, and then I've lost my audience.

Kevin Weitzel: Alright. Left to right. What is one metric that you cannot live without?

Mel McLaughlin: It comes to analytics. I want to know how many users are on my website, and then how long are they there.

Kevin Weitzel: Okay. Jordan?

Jordan Brown: Lead conversion. I want to know it. I want to see what's going on with, hey, is web form fill coming through? Is the self-assisted browse sessions out in our showcase [00:33:00] homes, are those up? Are those down? What's the feedback on that? What's the bounce rate on our website? I want to know all of that. Now, you can track a billion different metrics. You as a team really need to sit down and decide, okay, which ones are we really going to care about, and does that affect change across the company?

Because you can get lost so fast, and then you're just chasing squirrels. All of a sudden you're here, whereas life is going by, you know, with your sales team in the field and everything else, and it's just, you have to be very, very conscientious of, okay, what are we going to track, and why does that matter, and why are we going to continue to do it consistently?

Meredith Chapman: He went before me.

Kevin Weitzel: He did.

Meredith Chapman: He took my answer. It's lead conversion. You give me 150 leads, and you have four sales, there's a problem. Let's dive in, though, but bad lead is a conclusion. So, who's making the conclusion? It's lead conversion, for sure. Absolutely.

Kevin Weitzel: Metric you would throw out today. Any of them? Door swings is an old one, but what do you got?

Meredith Chapman: Bigger builder talk. We have [00:34:00] guardrails, so we're required, but we have a lot of reports that are asked and data that is collected from different teams for the same report. We need to throw that away. It's have a quarterback for every decision, what's the solution, where are we going, who's the driver, and the outcome we want, and we all have the same outcome. We all know what the outcome is, make a decision and move forward with that game plan. But having multiple different reports, all the reports you just said. I want this. How many clicks did they click on this? That's great, but we don't need different teams to have the same information.

Kevin Weitzel: Yeah.

Jordan Brown: Good.

Kevin Weitzel: Anything you want to throw out?

Jordan Brown: My answer changes whether we are build-centric or we're pumping out inventory into the market. So, last year, I'll just use that as an example, we were 70/30. We were 70% inventory, 30% build. You know, a metric that we would take a look at is option frequency, just in terms of across all of our plan designs, how often are our options being selected? You know, when your [00:35:00] sales team are the ones designing the showcase homes out in the field and making those decisions, it's not really a true metric that you should rely on.

You know, in that instance is, hey, what kind of feedback are we getting from prospects who are out there touring our homes and on the surveys. But you're only going to get as good of answers as you set those questions up to be in the surveys, right? You know, if it's just a glossed over, "Here's a survey, how was your experience?" You get what you get.

Mel McLaughlin: I honestly still want all the metrics. I don't really want to throw any of them out. I want it all. I want to know it all.

Kevin Weitzel: All right. We have some new people in the audience, people that are new to the industry, people are new to the marketing roles, people are new to VPs of sales, they're new into their new elevated position. If you could turn back time, what would you do differently going back to day one, walking back in your pathway to help out the people that are out there listening that are literally just getting started in their role? Let's start with you, Meredith.

Meredith Chapman: If I could turn back time, I would [00:36:00] absolutely really try to understand and really believe in the power of relationships and communication with cross-departmental. Like, you have to have interdepartmental communication from the very beginning, very beginning, and have a go, no-go plan with the decision maker, or you can talk all day long and nothing comes out of it. That's specifically big, big, big builders, but in life in general, I think you need to really truly understand the power of relationships and communication.

Kevin Weitzel: Love it. Mel?

Mel McLaughlin: I would say, and this comes from somebody who was painfully shy as a kid, is just don't be afraid to get out of the shadows and put yourself out there and be the front runner. Just be curious. Ask those questions. Go ask accounting a question or purchasing or architecture if you don't know something. Don't be afraid to ask.

Kevin Weitzel: And finally.

Jordan Brown: Kind of all on the same page here. Mine was speak up. If you want something, get after it, ask for it, [00:37:00] lean into mentorships, ask what you can do to learn more. Ask for the opportunity to go shadow in different departments if you have an interest in something as well. It just makes you a much better well-rounded individual, and a value asset for your company that you're at.

Kevin Weitzel: Mine is declaring yourself more valuable than what you think you are. That is constantly being a sponge, constantly be willing to learn, even stuff that has nothing to do with your own job, because the more you know about all the other stuff, the more value you bring to the table. You three are all gems and quite valuable, and thank you for being here today. [00:38:00]