223 Creating a Stellar Home Buyer Experience - Shawn McGuire Jun 26 2024

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: And we're excited today to have joining us on the show, Shawn McGuire. Shawn is the Broker and Sales Manager at Celebrity Homes. Welcome, Shawn. Thanks for being with us.

Shawn McGuire: Thank you, guys. Thanks for having me.

Greg Bray: Well, Shawn, let's start off and just help folks get to know a little bit about you. Give us that quick introduction and overview.

Shawn McGuire: You bet. Well, my name is Shawn McGuire. I'm the Broker Sales Manager of a company here in Omaha, Nebraska called Celebrity [00:01:00] Homes. We consider ourselves a volume builder, but a quality volume builder where we're building quite a few homes here in the Omaha and surrounding areas. Right now, I believe I have about 12 different communities, which we're building in, with about 25 different model homes located throughout the entire area of Omaha.

Kevin Weitzel: Well, before we dive deeper into that, let's find out something personal about you that has nothing to do with work, nothing to do with the home building industry, that we can find out on our podcast today.

Shawn McGuire: Oh, very good. Well, to be honest with you, you wouldn't know it to look at me, but I do enjoy some winter sports like skiing and I've been doing it ever since I was probably about three or four years old. The hard part in Omaha, Nebraska is to find a hill to ski on. Then once you find it, it's pretty simple. So, I've been skiing for quite a few years.

Kevin Weitzel: A lot of cross-country stuff then, eh?

Shawn McGuire: Oh, well, I've seen people do it. I've not done that myself.

Greg Bray: I'm glad you clarified that because I was going to ask if there are skiing hills in Nebraska or not. I haven't seen very many. So, just saying.

Shawn McGuire: Yeah, well, if you're driving to Colorado, then you'll know where we all head to when the snow falls.

Greg Bray: [00:02:00] Got it. Got it. Well, tell us just a little bit more about Celebrity Homes, Shawn. You kind of mentioned a little bit about what you're doing, but what type of buyer do you guys work with and what's your ideal home type that you're building?

Shawn McGuire: Yeah, fair question. You know, we deal with a lot of first-time buyers. That first-time buyer market has gradually grown to be something different than the guy and his wife, and maybe he made much less 10, 20 years ago to where today in order to buy a new home, there's definitely a lot of investment into it, a lot of thought that goes into it. So, we deal with a lot of first-time buyers.

Next step buyer, we go with folks who resize. It's nice, we've been around since 1977, and I've been representing Celebrity Homes for about 30 years. It's really neat that we have a lot of folks who've bought not just one or two homes from us. I think the record is, I think it's five, so it's really neat. We're a family-owned company. It's just a great experience being able to help so many folks here in our local area in getting into their new homes.

Greg Bray: Well, Shawn, what got you started in home building? How did you decide that that [00:03:00] was a career path you wanted to embrace?

Shawn McGuire: I started my career in this little small town out West called Las Vegas, Nevada. And in Las Vegas, the last year I was there, I was fortunate enough to meet a home builder and I just went out and listed his properties and I kind of got a little taste of it. And as our kids grew a little bit older, we decided that Omaha, Nebraska would be a great place to go back home and to raise our kids. So, we came back home.

I talked to a lot of folks about selling used houses and I talked to a couple of folks about new homes and I just enjoyed new home selling so much. So, I actually got into new home selling, where I was a representative of a pretty good volume home builder here in town for about three years. And then I went over to the builder I'm at now, and it really has been a phenomenal opportunity.

The neat thing about new homes, there's usually a parallel move between used houses and new homes. So, regardless of market conditions, regardless of what's going on in pricing, they always seem to be kind of running parallel to each other and they always go up and down seemingly together. So, there's [00:04:00] always needs for new homes. And like my dad used to say, we all need a place to live. It seemed pretty simple to me.

Greg Bray: Well, Shawn, you mentioned just a moment ago about repeat buyers, and that's not something that a lot of builders talk about or kind of pay attention to. Now, granted you have an advantage of your longevity as a builder. You know, somebody who's only been around for five years is not going to have lots of repeat buyers, right? That just hasn't been enough time. Is that something that you guys consciously focus on nurturing over time? Or is that something that just kind of happens without a lot of focus from you?

Shawn McGuire: You know, truth be known, we hadn't really started working for referrals, earning referrals, maybe up to about 10 years ago. Maybe it was after the whole exciting experience of 2007 and 2009 we really started working on referrals. So, we haven't been doing it that long either, to be honest with you. But it comes with effort, and like I mentioned earlier, something that we have to earn.

And so, if we understand we're earning that on the front end from a person being just a [00:05:00] customer to a prospect, as I manage that person through the building process, I need to know that I've earned that referral. So, that's the first thing. It was very specific in what we tried to do. We try to first work on the front end of our business experience with the consumer. Like I said, this is over 10 years ago, and we just want to make certain we're earning that referral.

I had to get to that point where our sales team felt like they earned it and we had the tools in front of us to earn it. And then after that, we were able to follow up with our folks through a new CRM program. I'm actually one of the co-owners of this company that we're building to help our builder all the way from consumer to prospect to buyer to homeowner. That's what we're working on right now.

Greg Bray: So, it sounds like Shawn, you've got a real focus on that overall buyer journey, if you will, trying to understand where it is that helps people feel comfortable, making recommendations to others, coming back for more when they want that next home. What are some of the things that you've done over the years to kind of [00:06:00] dig in deeper into that customer journey and to try to understand the buyer and understand some of those places where you can make a difference in that process?

Shawn McGuire: One thing builders have to learn is we have to learn to change. Our consumers, our buyers are constantly changing, and in today's environment when buyers are paying more for their new home, when they're investing more for their new home, when their monthly payments might be higher than ever before, and when their down payment is substantially higher, that's the first thing you have to recognize.

The consumer, the prospect, and the buyer, they really do deserve a huge, huge, phenomenal service and opportunity as you're going through the building process. They need to know that they're being taken care of that the builder, if not the builder, the builder's representative, they're certainly taking care of them during the entire process much more than ever before.

In today's environment, you have got to create a phenomenal buyer's experience. It's a must, and let me tell you why. Because a lot of times what you'll have during the buyer experience is maybe during that buyer experience, [00:07:00] interest rates go up. Maybe during that buyer experience, the lumber prices go up. The days of having a roller coaster up and down of a prospect or a buyer, those days are still there, but you've got to minimize those ups and downs.

Because at one point they're going to look at you and say, Hey, you know what? The market's changed and a used house might be the way for me to go. Or you know what? The prices have changed because of lumber costs and my contract says I can go higher. I don't want to do that. You need to demonstrate incredible service during the entire process.

So, what we did was we took a step back because everything I do when I start a project, I take a step back. I just look at who my market is. Who am I talking to? Well, the people we're talking to, first of all, understand how they find a home. Well, in the old days, in my market, they used to go to the newspaper. We don't do print anymore. So, we got off the print wagon. And I wish I could say, gosh, we did that years ago. We did that fairly recently.

So, what we did is we kind of got off the print and we started looking at our buyers. Well, everybody walks around with a cell [00:08:00] phone. And so, everything we have in common with all of our buyers is they have cell phones. So, we developed an app along with our sales process to kind of be blended into our CRM that basically invites our prospects to go to our app. You've got to have information out to them, not only readily available, I have to be able to answer the questions they're going to have before they even know they have a question.

So, we try to keep in contact with them. We try to keep them up to speed on what's going on with the process of not only their home but maybe if their prospects, what's going on with our company, what new neighborhoods coming available, they'll be the first to know. If they have any price adjustments, they know that too. Knowing who your buyer is in this market is really, really important.

You have families now basically where you're having blended families or blended people going into one home today. That's a lot different than it was 10 years ago. And the rates we're talking about, yeah, the rates are a little higher, but you have to be able to get over that hurdle. And we've got some plans and talking points that we can go over with our sales team to help consumers and prospects get over those hurdles. [00:09:00]

Kevin Weitzel: And as a cannibal, blended people are much easier to swallow than chewed-up people. Anyway, no, I'm just kidding. So, question for you. With your systems that you guys are putting in place, are you allowing changes to the plans or are you looking at building spec homes, move-in ready homes?

Shawn McGuire: Oh, very nice. So, we're a little different. We have spec inventory, which is great. But we also have some lots available for pre-sales, things like that. One thing that we've always done is we try to make certain that when we go to the purchase contract table, everything is laid out. Our lenders are laid out. The features that are in the home are laid out, everything's in there.

And if down the road, the consumer, the buyer wants to make adjustments, we really don't do many post addendums. We just don't. And to be honest with you, the way we're built, when we basically go ahead and do a purchase agreement, that purchase agreement basically gets approved, gets thumbs up, we're ready to go. Then it gets blasted out to all our vendors and trades, and they know what to expect, they know how to price, they know how to order. So, they're all good to go.

If a buyer then comes up and says, geez, I'd like to change something or add something, [00:10:00] it's nearly impossible because we just don't have the time to go retrieve that. We've kind of already given everything to our vendors and suppliers. We just don't make changes like that. We don't.

Greg Bray: So Shawn, as you have done this research and understanding of the buyer and you've learned some of the things that they're looking for, I mean, you've tried to engage digitally with an app versus this thing that I've heard of called a newspaper, that's not around much anymore, do you have an example of something where you went, you know what, we discovered x about our buyers, therefore, we're going to start now doing Y in our process?

Shawn McGuire: We did. And this is years ago. And what we discovered we did through our surveys and things that we sent out in conversations with our buyers. It's really interesting. One thing we learned a while ago, 52 percent of our buyers make the decision to purchase in the first five weeks. That was in our markets. That's what it did. So, we discovered that.

[00:11:00] So, my job, as far as support to my sales team and to the consumer, our prospects trying to help them make their decisions, is I have a five-week window to get as much information I can to them because so many of them are choosing to purchase in that time frame. I don't forget about the other ones, but those that are going to buy in the next five weeks, that's where I really concentrate. And what happens with us is that off that five-week window, I can then kind of determine, well, here's what sales are gonna look like the next 30 days, all that good stuff.

So, it helps me kind of prepare for the next group of sales. So, if I'm really busy right now and having a lot of folks registering, going through our models, meeting with our sales team, it's pretty close. But I can tell you fairly educationally that the next month will be X number of sales, and I usually try to do that internally. So, I kind of see what I'm projecting and then I'm able to talk to my sales team.

But the thing I'm glad we did was recognize who our buyers are and how soon do they buy. So, now if we do any like e-blast, if we do a text messaging to them, my agents [00:12:00] haven't called them for a week or two, and I can see that, we'll make certain we're engaging them really well in the first five weeks, most certainly.

Greg Bray: What techniques did you use to actually collect that kind of data? Was that just sending out some surveys or how did you kind of engage with those that could provide that information for you?

Shawn McGuire: With us, a lot of it was a surveys, but then we also had buyer meetings halfway through. So if a buyer is basically going through building their home, we'll take a quick meeting with them, they'll sit down with our representative and we'll bring them up to speed. Here's what's going on. Here's what's happening with your home. And oh, by the way, just if you guys can go back, think about it. How long did you take to make the decision to buy a new home? So, we found out those two ways.

Respectfully, we have a lot of buyers, we have a lot of folks that come through our models that we can survey so, that does help. But a smaller builder can pretty much do the same thing by asking their buyers in that same manner, that same question. They can also reach out to their real estate friends or realtors in the world and say, you know what do you guys see as far as [00:13:00] purchasing? How long is it taking for a person to make their decision? And kind of blend that in to see what comes out.

Greg Bray: So, as you compare that, Shawn, because you've got a wealth of experience over the years of seeing kind of these changes, as you compare that to how it used to be, do you think that that speed of decision is being driven by the buyers having more information and more understanding before they make that initial engagement with you guys because they've been doing their research and understanding what you have to offer?

Shawn McGuire: Back in the day when I used to say to people, you have a wealth of information that used to mean you're really old.

And you know what? I am in this, even in this industry, I'm pretty old. But yeah. So, what we found is that the folks that are purchasing, making their decision to purchase, while things change all the time, some things don't. And sometimes it's like a situation where they're coming out of a lease and they're coming up maybe two, three months up on their lease, they know a date they need to move. There's an itch that I need to scratch, and sometimes that's really [00:14:00] soon. Sometimes they have a home that they're going to need to sell. They talk to the realtor, they're all excited about listing it. And they make the decision really quickly after they list the home on which home they're going to buy.

The neat thing is that five and a half weeks really hasn't changed that much. And I think the consumer today, like I mentioned before with the phone, the apps, the websites, all the search engines out there, I can tell you without hesitancy our buyers are more informed than ever before. Not only about our product, our communities, our pricing, a lot of my agents, most of them are on LinkedIn. And for those that basically, I can track and understand who's joining LinkedIn or they can see who's looked at their LinkedIn page.

It is unbelievable how many folks will go on to something like LinkedIn and we'll search my agents. And we have a page for our agents on our website, where we basically kind of create their own little website inside of our website. It is incredible how many people have gone on to that website just to check who that agent is, get some information.

So, it's not only the builder [00:15:00] and the home's designs are getting the information of, but they're also getting information about the representative, the person they might meet. We always had a conversation with our sales team is that you know, think how hard it is when you walk up to a model home and you have to turn that doorknob. You don't know who's on the other side of that. Well, in today's environment, they can know that.

Greg Bray: I was just thinking, Kevin, the kind of scary things you could do to someone who's about to open that door. You know, have a little fun.

Kevin Weitzel: I would absolutely dress on a daily basis as a circus seventies pimp.

Shawn McGuire: Oh, that's

Kevin Weitzel: Like a huggy bear, a heavy set huggy bear.

Shawn McGuire: Oh, I remember Huggy Bear. That was great. That would be great. Well, you know what? They would definitely remember you.

Kevin Weitzel: They'll never forget you.

Greg Bray: Kevin constantly gives away these special tips for those builders who are really listening closely of things they can try.

Kevin Weitzel: We've had a couple of doozies, haven't we?

Greg Bray: So, Shawn, as you're trying to connect specifically with first-time home [00:16:00] buyers, what's different about first-timers than some of those who are interested in move up in the way that you message or outreach or try to connect with them?

Shawn McGuire: Well, you first need to understand that for any buyer, but first time in particular, it's a hard situation to get somebody to understand that they can even afford or buy a new home. So, one of the things we have to do is demonstrate that they can. So, in today's market, when a first-time buyer in particular is going through a model home, it's not enough for them to come back and say, Oh my gosh, I really like this floor plan. We have to demonstrate how they can get the home. We have to demonstrate what the payments will be.

We've created some, we call it quick qualifier. So, our agents can sit down and show people, you know, if they're going to FHA, VA, conventional, whatever, they can show them, you know, that yes, you can qualify for this home. That's a big deal.

The other issue we have with first-time buyers quite often is that first-time buyer mentality, that generation that's buying, they're not tied into a city, a job, or perceived length of time. So, when [00:17:00] they buy a home, for them putting down roots, that's a big commitment. It's funny because our average age of first-time home buyers a while back, I just have to look to this every day was 23 years of age. They had just got out of college. They may be married. They may not be married, but you're 23 years of age. Right now, it's pushing 30.

So, you know, they're finally getting to the point where you know what? I kind of determined that I'm going to stay put. I'm going to go ahead and buy the home. I may be closer to 30 and now's the time to do it. And when they're single, it's typically young, nice ladies purchasing the home. We want to make sure that we're showing as much as we possibly can to make sure that we're answering all, regardless of the man or woman, you're answering all the questions.

But often we'll have a nice lady go through the home, she'll bring a lot of her friends through. We'll make sure it's a good purchase for her and that's phenomenal. But we have to be more sensitive to who our buyer is today, especially when the first-home buyers. Just as it's difficult to get that person who's moving up or resizing to leave that two-and-a-half percent interest rate, or to jump into a six and a three-quarter rate. They both have [00:18:00] hurdles.

And I wish I could say, you know what? The easiest one is the first-time buyer. That's not necessarily true. The folks who are resizing and leaving that home, it's difficult to get them to understand the value of a new home compared to what they're leaving. And yeah, the rate might be higher, but you know what? The possibilities are even greater.

Kevin Weitzel: Shawn, you'll have to pry my 2.25 from my cold, dead hand.

Shawn McGuire: It's tough. We come across that a lot. For new home sales guys, that's what I am. You have to one, make sure that the service is phenomenal. You want to deal with me just because I'm me, I have a great service for you. I mean, we wear a lot of hats, right? So, now I have to basically put on my banker hat and say, yeah, we're going to get that two and a quarter away from you. But when we do it, you're also going to earn a lot of equity, maybe more today than you will in a year or two or three years.

And then have to educate people on housing prices, really why they're higher, and what's really going to happen. We do a lot of educating to our consumers telling them, yeah, the price might come down a little bit, but don't get used to the prices to what they were five years ago because we [00:19:00] probably unfortunately won't go back to that. But yeah, I'll tell you what, the lending institution who can figure out how can I take that two-and-a-quarter rate and just move it over to the next home, they'll get a lot of business. That'd be phenomenal.

Greg Bray: So Shawn, you talked about educating the buyer. Beyond the sales team and their conversations, what types of things do you guys work on to provide educational resources? Do you do that on social media? Do you do blogging? Do you do other types of email marketing? How do you try to educate?

Shawn McGuire: Yeah, that's a great question. We do a lot with first and foremost with the new program we developed an app. Literally, we have a prospects toolbox or a buyer's toolbox. In that toolbox, they'll find everything from community maps to all that great stuff to even, and this is great, a glossary of terms. And a glossary of terms for finance, a glossary of terms for new construction. You know, I've never seen anybody with as big as a glossary of terms that we share with the buyers. So, we educate them that way. That's really important.

A lot of our emails that we [00:20:00] send out are also bent towards educating. On our website, you can find it as well. The other thing we do too is because, you know, a lot of our customers currently are using realtors as their buyer's agents. That's great. We have to educate that market too. So, we have to educate realtors as well as our consumers. It's a big deal. We have radio ads that go out and stuff like that. Occasionally I get invited to do a radio station thing. We'll go and try to do that. We're just trying to educate people on why now is a great time to buy.

And all of this, to be honest with you, stem from, for a lot of people, when you guys are way too young to remember, but in 07 and 09, things weren't so fun. We had a lot of trials to get over and people did not want to buy a home. People are literally mailing in their keys to their lenders. So, we really, really needed to explain to the buyer why at that time, it's a great time. And so, that's where we kind of set up. You know, we're going to do that through a lot of ways.

But first and foremost, service has got to be phenomenal. You've got to be approachable. You have to make certain that the builder [00:21:00] who's representing himself or his representatives are approachable and likable. You want to make sure that you have the best people, your best foot forward all the time. That's the first step. The next step is here's where you go to find out that information.

We're doing it with an app. So, that app will be really big. What we're trying to get more social into the app, kind of bred into it a little bit more. So, articles, communication between the buyers who are looking at homes, would be great. And then we're trying to get blended in there too, that our agents to participate in these conversations as well, to make it more social. But it needs to be a one-stop shop and that's what we're trying to develop.

Greg Bray: Take us behind the curtain a little bit in that decision to develop an app. Because again, sometimes people do it just because, Oh, I need an app. And sometimes people are like, I don't even know where to begin with something like that. So, where did you guys come from where you said, you know what? I think we want to go the app route and this is how we're going to try to make it work. Just kind of that early thought process behind that.

Shawn McGuire: Yeah. And I'll be honest with you, like I said, I've been doing this for a long time and I'm [00:22:00] kind of old school. But I'm a trainer for the National Association of Home Builders, and I was down in, uh, Kansas City. And there's a gentleman, this is like 15 years ago, and he's telling me he's going to develop an app. And I said, do me a favor after we go through this course about, the course basically talked about new home buyers and new home sales.

And I said, after this course, you tell me if you think if you and I were in a model home location, you were on one side of the street, I was on the other who would sell more homes. And after the course, he came up to me and said, you'd sell a lot more homes. And I said I appreciate that. But he said to me, and I always remember this. Yeah, but that's not going to last very long. And I said, what do you mean? He says the technology for apps where people are going to look, it's going to be an app.

And gosh, darn it. If I wasn't literally at a dinner one night and I was just looking around and we've all seen this, every stinking table if there's a couple that two phones on there, everybody had a phone. So, I kind of went back and I thought, you know what? Let's develop an app. So we started it with just nothing more than I hate to say this, but it looked like a just a [00:23:00] copy version of my website.

And so that wasn't it. So we need to take a step back again. And we said, What can this app do that our website can't? Well, we should be able to contact people often immediately. So, we'll have alerts to it. The consumer should be able to go to it just for push of a button and open it up and get everything they want that we have on our website. But then even get additional stuff because they happen to be, you know, liking or registered with one of our agents, they can even get more stuff. And what that does, it'll encourage people to engage with that builder just so they can get more stuff.

So, it's a push and pull marketing and that's what we were looking for. So, we're doing that. We have to register our people, but also realtors as well. So, we create this thing called a verified registration system where the consumer gets an email saying, yep, are you registered with this agent? Yep. And now is your realtor the one who introduced you? Yep, and a conversion goes out, everything goes out. I wanted a verified registration system where the builder, the buyer, and the representative would know that the consumer, the buyer, wanted to be [00:24:00] contacted, gave you permission to reach out to them to answer their questions.

In the future, not near future, what's going to end up happening is that the consumer, the buyer, one day is going to say, look, before you can reach out to me, you need my consent. That's a big part of what that is for. So, we want to one-stop shop for everything. We are going to start socializing up even more so people feel more engaging. They go on for numerous reasons not only to purchase a home, but for other reasons as well.

Kevin Weitzel: Now that's for the purchasing portion. Does that app also follow through after the sale so they can see the status of their home as it's being built?

Shawn McGuire: Yeah, so it's a tracker system that the builders themselves can go ahead and adjust accordingly. We just have like a basement stage, a frame stage, rough ends, all that. So, we'll create those into the tracker system so when they go on to their app, they'll see where they are in this tracker system. They'll also get updates pings on their app saying, hey, you've just gone to framing stage. Then they even get an email to them saying, Hey, just to remind you, you're on the framing stage. So, we're keeping them abreast of all that too. The man hours it saves [00:25:00] for our sales staff has been phenomenal. The other side of it is your consumer is always up to date on what's going on. It's working out beautifully as a buyer.

Greg Bray: Well, Shawn, we appreciate how open and freely you've shared today with some of your experiences. As you are kind of thinking about our audience, do you have any last words of advice that you'd like to leave as we wrap up?

Shawn McGuire: The one thing I've learned over the years representing a builder, working with builders for a long time, consulting builders, you know, there's always hurdles are placed in front of us. That's kind of what makes us an interesting business. If everything was really simple, everybody would do it. So, getting over those hurdles is really important. Identifying them first, and then basically conceiving and come up with a plan that will successfully get you over. That's really what builders and the representatives really need to do. In today's environment, there's so many different ways to do it. And one thing I have learned is, if you're holding on to a newspaper ad, let it go.

Greg Bray: No more newspaper ads. You heard it here. You heard it here. Well, thanks again, Shawn, for being with us. If somebody wants to [00:26:00] connect with you, what's the best way for them to get in touch?

Shawn McGuire: Yeah, to reach out to me. I'm on LinkedIn, of course, but you're welcome to give me a call at 402 896 3100 extension 132. That's my office number. Or obviously, you can always email me at smcguire, M C G U I R E@celebrityhomes, that's plural omaha.com.

Greg Bray: Well, thanks again. 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. [00:27:00]