This week on The Home Builder Digital Marketing Podcast, Steve Ormonde of Focus 360 joins Greg and Kevin to discuss the advantages of becoming an exceptional virtual home builder.
Currently, home buyers are doing most of their research and making a majority of their home buying decisions online, which has been a dramatic shift in recent years. Steve says,
“Eighty percent of the decision process was happening at the sales center, and that’s flipped on its head, right? Now, the website is where 80% of the decision is made. That last 20% happens at the point of sale really to make sure that the people they’re meeting at the sales center, the neighborhood they’re buying in is something that they’re prepared for.”
Because of that change, home builders need to be more equipped to help customers experience home options in a virtual environment. Unfortunately, some builders are not taking full advantage of the opportunities that are available to support customers through that journey. Steve explains,
“…I can still randomly pull up a builder website and their renderings aren’t even renderings. They’re just the CAD, you know, the black and white line drawings, the architect produced…My gut hurts when I see that because it’s their storefront. People are driving by looking in to see what they do and all they have are these line drawings, but I’m sure they build beautiful homes….Yeah, it surprises me how many builders still haven’t really stepped their game up when it comes to their storefront, their website.”
Reasonably priced virtual resources can be created that benefit the home builder and that will meet the needs of the home buyer. Steve says,
“This isn’t, you know, the early days of 3D. We’re doing hundreds if not thousands of virtual models per year at an affordable price. A few thousand bucks and you can have something to show your buyer every single plan. The sooner they jump on that bandwagon, the better they will be because they’ll get full leverage on their portfolio of investment plans and the better experience the buyers will get.”
Listen to this week’s episode to learn more about home builder visualization tools.
About the Guest:
Steve Ormonde is the Founder and President of Focus 360. He began his career in architecture as a Computer Aided Design (CAD) Coordinator in 1983 after receiving an Associate of Architecture degree from Saddleback College. In 1988, he combined marketing techniques with architectural CAD elements to develop the home building industry’s first “Virtual Model Home” and in January of 1989 launched Ormonde Presentations. Ten years later, his company had grown into an internationally recognized firm, lauded for its success in serving the residential homebuilding industry. During that time, the company had been the focus of more than 100 published articles and several network television appearances. In 2000, the company name changed from Ormonde Presentations to Focus 360, Inc. In 2012, he was honored with the Max Tipton Award for Marketing Excellence by the Sales and Marketing Council of Southern California. Today, Steve Ormonde is known as one of the leading industry experts and is a frequent guest lecturer at numerous building industry-related functions throughout the US.