246 Forecasting Home Sales With Technology - David Lynch Dec 4 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 are excited today to have joining us on the show, David Lynch. David is the head of growth at OpenHouse.ai. Welcome, David. Thanks for being with us today.

David Lynch: Thank you for having me folks. It's a pleasure to be on this podcast. I listen when I can and love what you guys are putting out there. So, thank you for having me.

Greg Bray: Oh, well, thanks for being a listener. We're up to, like, five now. Right, Kevin? People that actually listen.

Kevin Weitzel: At least. At least five, maybe six.

David Lynch: I'm five [00:01:00] foot eight. So, it's probably more like four and a half, so.

Greg Bray: Well, David, for those who haven't met you, let's start off by getting to know you a little bit. Give us a little bit of background about yourself.

David Lynch: Absolutely. So, David is my name. I'm from Ireland. Originally from the south of Ireland. I was raised on a farm. My dad's a farmer, buys and sells resources and does everything you can imagine with grains. And I moved to Cork to study and then ended up living abroad for the bones of the last 10 years between Madrid, Spain, so fluent in a couple of languages, London, England for a couple of years, New York for a couple of years, Guadalajara, Mexico for a year, Columbia for a half a year, and then kind of settling into Calgary, Alberta for the skiing and for the Calgary stampede. It kind of got a little bit of addictive that country music.

I have managed to find myself in a place of working at OpenHouse as their head of growth. As a side note, I'm also an actor on the side. So, you know, lots of things going on these days, but that's a little bit of background on myself.

Kevin Weitzel: So, when you were in England, did you struggle with a language [00:02:00] barrier at all?

David Lynch: Oh, yeah, absolutely. They don't speak very good English.

Greg Bray: Especially compared to New Yorkers, right?

David Lynch: That's it.

Kevin Weitzel: Here's the fun part. Before we take a deep dive into OpenHouse.ai and what you guys do and such, you know some interesting tidbit about yourself. Although you just spilled a whole bunch of them, interesting tidbit about yourself that has nothing to do with the home building industry, work, or family life.

David Lynch: Perfect. When I was 15, I was the first person to play the role, in drag, of Killer Queen in We Will Rock You, the musical. And I wore 8-inch high heels and found them actually quite comfortable. I think that's an odd tidbit that you're not going to get from too many people on this podcast.

Kevin Weitzel: I would guarantee that you're probably going to be solo in that category for the entirety of our entire guest list that we ever have on the podcast.

David Lynch: Yeah. I thought you'd enjoy that one.

Kevin Weitzel: That's a very good one.

Greg Bray: Well, we might need to have pictures to add into somewhere, right, to help people really catch the vision of what that was.

David Lynch: Oh, it was surreal for sure. [00:03:00] It was surreal.

Greg Bray: Well, David, how did you go from that to working in the home building industry and being with the folks over at OpenHouse?

David Lynch: So, it's almost like that into technology companies. And I'll give you a quick background. I was very fortunate to be offered two directions in life at the age of 22. One was a West End musical. The Commitments was being made into a musical from a film. I don't know if you ever saw The Commitments about an Irish show band. Great movie. I highly recommend anyone who hasn't seen it should watch it. It's real feel-good stuff.

And the other opportunity was to be accepted to the Jemison graduate program, which is still today, I think ranked the highest kind of marketing and sales graduate program you can do in Europe. And it's with Pernod Ricard or Southern Wines and Spirits out here. And I ended up choosing the Jemison, right? Because I wanted to develop myself more. Quite frankly, I was a kid and I didn't want to go to London just yet. I wanted to explore. Lived in Spain for a couple of years where I became fluent in Spanish. It was the best decision I ever made.

But after that, I was kind of left wanting more and [00:04:00] I looked at technology startups as a place where you could develop skills very quickly. It wasn't sort of a waiting game. It was if you can step up to the plate and hit your mark, you can really take advantage of the opportunities and you can develop yourself quickly. And I did that and joined a logistics company for about five years and another one and consulted on the side.

And then, I actually took a bit of a break and started consulting just for a couple of companies, helping to build out some strategies around growth and how they could build sales teams and how they could build some marketing endeavors. And I worked for a great, fantastic guy, CEO, Tony Lamb, shout out to Hook and Ladder in Calgary. And I worked as a client success manager and learned a ton under his tutelage.

Before this guy, Will Zhang, LinkedIn me and was like, heard you know, stuff about growth, be nice to connect. And so, we got on a call, chatted, gave him kind of a rundown of what I think could be the problem. Got together and I think I worked as a consultant firm for the bones to three weeks before he said, we'd love to have you on [00:05:00] board. And it was about the right time. I was looking for something that was different. I was looking to get back into the startup game again. And that's how I landed at OpenHouse.ai.

Greg Bray: Now, OpenHouse has been around for long enough that I wouldn't necessarily call them a startup, but they seem to be restarting several times

David Lynch: Great point.

Kevin Weitzel: It seems like they've reinvented themselves a few times now.

David Lynch: Yes. Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

Kevin Weitzel: But doesn't that come more with the territory of the necessity of updating AI and making sure you're always up on the curve?

David Lynch: I think it's the necessity of being available to pivot, actually. So, if we think of some of the best startups out there, like Airbnb, is a great example for me. It's the openness to pivot your business model, to pivot what you're doing. That being said, what OpenHouse really did was very similar to what OpenAI did actually is they had about four or five years of research and development masked by pivots, in my opinion.

The idea of this is what we're going to do. Hey, everybody, this is what we're going to do was to kind of [00:06:00] driver, but in the background, they were building a repository of knowledge. And what that led to was I was very lucky guys, because I kind of arrived when they'd kind of gone, hey, we've figured it out now. We're actually in a spot where we know what we should be doing.

So, I felt as though outwardly it looked like many reinventions, but internally to me, it really reminded me of OpenAI where it was kind of like, we're going to incubate, we're going to research, we're going to build what we need to build here over time, and we will have something come to fruition. And they're finally at that point now where they have started to build that momentum and they hired someone to come in and drive that momentum for them I think at the right time.

Greg Bray: All right, well, don't leave us hanging, David. What is the new focus or the current focus and how does that best fit in with those who are listening today?

David Lynch: Yeah, so great question. We're selling toothbrushes. We pivoted fully, we're going to sell toothpaste and toothbrushes. You don't have to wash your teeth anymore, guys. It'll predict when, I'm just kidding. So, there's three reasons why home builders are working with us at the [00:07:00] moment. The first piece and it's a pivotal part as to why home builders are working with us is it's very hard to predict your future in life. We all can agree that if we can predict what's going to happen to ourselves in 30 days' time, we would do things slightly differently 60 days, 90 days, even more differently. Right?

And it's the same with home builders. It's very hard to predict a couple of things. 1. It's hard to predict your demand, your sales. It's hard to predict cash flow, number 2. And it's hard to predict bottlenecks in your pre-construction and construction. Really difficult. Usually what happens is they become a problem, and it takes you maybe 60, maybe 90, maybe even 120 days to fix those problems.

And so, what we're doing at OpenHouse to help home builders is do just that, predict your future sales, your demand. Predict the bottlenecks you're going to have in your pre-construction, construction, and predict, which is just a project we're embarking on now, the blockers to successful, healthy cash flow. These are things that are going to, and thankfully are producing, massive returns on investments for our clients today.

But it took us a while to get there because you can [00:08:00] imagine the kind of profiles, the millions of buyer profiles and personas we had to build to get to where we are alongside understanding what data mattered the most, what metrics mattered to most to home builders. So, that's the first reason why home builders work with us.

The second one is there's not a lot of high-intention funnels out there. You know, if you look at E-commerce industries, other spaces in general, like think about how you buy, you know, an Apple watch, think about how you buy a razor or a toothbrush and toothpaste for that matter. A lot of them have very good high-intention funnels, so they can capture an audience that know what they want and know what they're looking for. Home building is not that advanced yet.

They're getting there, but it's not really in the same vein in that they have lots of contact forms. They have walkthroughs and incredibly interactive experiences that you can get into. And COVID actually helped progress a lot of that, which is fantastic. But what's missing is somewhat sort of a portal for those who are like, Hey, I actually know what I want. I know what I'm looking for. I'm ready to go and make a decision.

And it's also confounded with like they [00:09:00] don't necessarily want to also buy online just yet. What they're looking for is to get to a place where they can have appointment quickly and that person knows, we know what you're looking for. Now let's talk to, if we're quoting Jeff, Shore. Let's talk to, you know, your dissatisfaction today, what your future promises, what your motivations are for moving.

And so, we built OpenConnect, which is just that. It's a high-intention funnel. It reduces the carrying costs per home. So, it increases the average conversion rate from lead generated to home sold. It does a whole bunch of things because we're just focusing on high-intent leads. So, don't come to us if you're like, give me more leads. Come to us if you're like, give me the right leads. And those are the areas that we're really helping home builders in today now. And it's fantastic because we really are focused on our channels and we're here to stay. That's for sure.

Greg Bray: So, David, it sounds like that with those different focuses, you're touching different parts of the company at a given builder. Right? So, if you're trying to predict future sales from the standpoint of, gosh, how much should I be planning for my [00:10:00] construction schedule and my materials and all of these kinds of things, that's one department. Right? And then lead management improvement is more of a different department. Am I understanding that correctly? Or do you feel like it's kind of all talking to the same person at the builder?

David Lynch: No, I think there's a couple of levels to that philosophically. I think on on the first level, I think you're dead right. You're talking to different people to a degree. When you're looking at that prediction side, you're talking to VPs of operations, you're talking to divisional vice presidents, you're talking to CEOs, CXOs because they're thinking about how many homes are they going to release to the field. They're thinking about if it's a cooler market, how do I keep my hopper full in construction? If it's a hotter market, how do I make sure I'm selling my homes for the best price possible? And so, it's touching on having those conversations with sales, having those conversations with marketing.

Like marketing, if you can predict what's gonna happen in 90 days, what do you think marketing are going to do, guys? Instead of doing incentive campaigns, they're going to do evergreen campaigns, like downsizing, upsizing. You know, thinking of moving your family, you're having another Lanov, as we say in Irish, another baby, what are you going to [00:11:00] do?

You're right in that they're somewhat separated. But at the end of the day, that piece on OpenConnect, you know, knowing that we do save money with carrying costs, knowing that we do improve conversion rates so that you can actually sell faster, like, often 15 days faster is kind of our average. There's a lot of that kind of going up to the CEO and going up to the divisional presence as well as being something to note.

And to marketers listening, I feel your pain. You're looking at conversion rates, you're looking at return on ad spend, you're looking at these different metrics as the, Hey boss, look what I'm doing. Look how great the work I'm doing is. But in a cooler market, there's less media money to spend, there's less flexibility and freedom to be creative. And because naturally what's our endeavor, guys? We're going to shut down and we're going to spend less money and we're going to hold the force and press the mode against and whatnot.

So, for me, I think they touch in both areas, but the return on investment financially, the dollar return investment is something we're very focused on at OpenHouse. Yeah, I hope that kind of answers your question. I haven't gotten away from Kev yet. So, I hope we're doing okay.

Greg Bray: David. [00:12:00] So, let me peel this back a little bit just to kind of understand the algorithm inputs a little bit more that helps with some of these decisions. Right? Because I could see a scenario, somebody is using these tools and they go, Hey, you know what? In 90 days or 120 days, we're expecting this level of sales. The predictive model says that's going to happen. Therefore we don't need to do anything today because it's going to happen.

But the reality is, is that that model is based on certain activities that are going on today, that actually drive those things. But sales and marketing is always about trying to change the inputs to improve. We're trying to try the new campaign to see if we get more leads. We're trying to change the focus to see if we get better quality leads and all of that. So, how do we balance that experimentation and the inputs with this idea that, oh, well, we're forecasting out and we're going to plan on certain things because based on our history, we're going to sell this many [00:13:00] homes in 3 months. Does that question make any sense whatsoever?

David Lynch: No, can I play it back so I know you know I understand you. You're asking me if I know what's going to happen in 90 days' time, where is my incentive to do things differently?

Greg Bray: That's a much better way to say it. Yeah.

David Lynch: Like why am I incentivized to bother? So, first and foremost, if you do nothing but what you're doing today, the forecast should run its course. The problem is, if you look at the senior leadership level, they are very focused on profitability. They are very focused on profitability for homes sold. They're very focused on timing, releases to the field. If you also look at how long it takes to get permits today, the land positions people have today versus what they used to have 20 years ago, you have to be really smart about how much you sell your homes for.

It's not like the old days where you might have had, like, Canada, you've got 15-year land position. You know, I had someone who's a home builder in the U.S. tell me the other day, hey, we're on it. We got a three year land [00:14:00] position, right? But a three-year land position, a lot of things can change. And when you think about your incumbents, like, coming into your markets, like, DR Horton, Lennar, the big players. You know, I read a great article from the VP of sales from Lennar, who's going into St. George in Utah yesterday on the Builder Daily. They're doing amazing things.

And so, you need to really think about how you're playing the game. And what this is doing is the following, you're sitting there and you're looking, and if your market is cooling, you're starting to potentially drop your price before everyone else, but I'll give you a really good example.

One home builder that we work with introduced back pocket incentives off the back of seeing the prediction report because it was cooling slightly. What does that mean? It means that I couldn't find any ad online. So in my head originally, guys, I thought they're not listening to our prediction report. This is a problem. How are we going to keep them?

Walk in the door and the VP of sales tells me we are listening. We're just not telling anyone. And so what they're doing is at that point where they have someone on the fence, they're just pushing back pocket incentives over that would otherwise [00:15:00] be advertised in one month's time, based on what they're planning and then 2 months later for their competitors, right?

Because think about people who don't have a prediction of where things are going. If the market's going like this, and it's going to go like this, right? And you can only see here, folks. You can only see the market at the bottom. What are you going to do? You're going to potentially continue to introduce more incentives. You're going to think about what you're going to do to fill the hopper in construction.

But the other person who can see the market going this way, what do you think they're doing? They might start incrementally increasing prices, preparing for things to get busier as time goes on. They might be thinking about when is the right time to release their lots to the field. When is the right time to sell those homes? They might even be thinking about land positions. Like now that I know that I'm actually going to move these homes in this time, what should I be thinking about here, there, everywhere?

So, to your point, sure, yeah, you might do nothing, but most likely, there's some amazing leaders in home building that I've met so far and they really care about these things and they care about people doing well and [00:16:00] being successful and keeping their jobs long term. Big part of that is profitability. And so, they're going to be thinking about all these different movements they can make, be it a market that's cooling, a market that's warming, how they're going to respond accordingly.

And the last thing I'll say to you both is this, what I find that people really don't realize is if you know where your future is going, even if you've got all the gut instinct in the world, even if you knew it was coming, even if you say to everyone, well, we planned that anyway. It's the time spent in indecision that you remove with OpenPredict. It's no longer, let's talk about this tomorrow, lads. Actually, listen, I have a call right now. Let's talk about this tomorrow. We'll get into this tomorrow. Just do it. Go.

Kevin Weitzel: There's not two avenues in chess. There's not reactive or proactive. There is strategy. So, whether you lean toward reactive or proactive, you still have to implement strategy. That's, I think, what AI really allows builders to do is they allow them to realign their strategy to best service that profitability and that P and L [00:17:00]

David Lynch: Well said Kevin, because like a strategy is a hypothesis, right? I always say to people, don't confuse a strategy with a plan. A plan is where our brain wants to go. It's the safest space. It's cuddly and cozy. The budget's lined up and you can go now take your holidays with the family and you can switch off. A strategy is a hypothesis. We think if we do this, this will happen.

So, if I'm telling you this is going to happen in the future. We think we'll do this, this will happen. The beauty about a cyclical business like home building is now you know where your market's going. It probably most definitely will happen unless something like COVID rolls around, or something of that nature shifts or changes things, it's only going to go this direction. This is what's going to happen. So, now you're in an amazing position to take the strategy and implement a plan, take the hypothesis and drive a plan. I hope that kind of gives you the answer you're looking for.

Greg Bray: If I can kind of circle back around to that, David, I think the other part probably is recognizing that the people that are on our website today, for example, are [00:18:00] probably not the people that are buying this month. These are the leads are the people that are buying 2, 3, 4 months down the road that are showing up in this prediction. Right? So, when we talk about driving the future, there's things we do today that do drive the future.

David Lynch: It is literally 3 months. It's 3 months. It's from when someone's like, okay, I'm actually pretty keen on getting the house now. My lady or my wife or my boyfriend has pushed me. It's three months, three months from that point to close. And that's why we actually do a three-month prediction, by the way, because it makes the most sense. So, to your point, it's what you do now, that's going to have an amazing impact in three months' time and get you ahead.

Here's one more example for you. Today is month one and the market's going this way. It's going up for everybody listening. Sorry, cause I'm using my hands. The market is going up. It's warming up. It's month one. I am home builder OpenPredict, you are home builder without OpenPredict, right? The market is changing. You are like, Okay, we sold 10 homes last month. We sell 10 homes this month. Great. But I know where my market's going.

So, I've been preparing this month for [00:19:00] what's coming next month. I'm introducing pricing changes, getting rid of incentives. My graphic design team are going to work on new marketing material. My sales team have been informed that pricing is going up so their expectations are managed so that they're going to sell one less home, two less homes in the next month.

Month two rolls around. You as a home builder without OpenPredict sell 10 homes again. Okay, I sell nine, but my pricing has gone up. Month three rolls around, you sell twelve, and you go, wow, things are going really well. I sell eight. Month four, you sell thirteen, I sell nine. You sell eleven on the next one, I sell ten. Month 5, 6, 7, 8, what happens? At some point, you're going to run out of capacity because you're selling 12 and 13 and 14 and 11 and 10. I'm selling 9, 9, 9, 9, 10.

What is happening? My pricing is increasing. Your pricing is staying the same. You're having that moment of hesitation. That was an okay month. Let's not increase pricing just yet, guys. That was a good month. He was really on fire, that sales guy. We don't want to do anything. We don't want to change it. You see where I'm going with this? If you [00:20:00] know what's going to happen, things change your path very differently. Do you know what I mean?

I know, for example, my brother is going to Nashville at the end of the month. So, I've decided to do Sober October because I know, I can predict that I'm going to have an array of beverages in Nashville come the first week of November and I don't need to be drinking for this month considering the fact that I'm going to have enough to cover me for the month of October. So because I'm predicting that, I'm going to do Sober October this month.

Kevin Weitzel: Are you saying that next month there could be a parade of Guinness and Jameson?

David Lynch: Oh, yeah, big time.

Greg Bray: So, David, here's the wrinkle in the whole thing that I see, right? There's an assumption built into all of this that a home builder has a high-quality website. What happens to all of this when they've got a piece of junk website that actually doesn't engage buyers and doesn't actually help them want to buy from this particular builder and their ability to predict what's going on. I'm assuming that there's a certain level of quality and the [00:21:00] ability to engage a lead by the builder with the information they're putting out, so that you can then say, okay, it's going to take them this long to kind of move through the process.

David Lynch: You've touched on something really interesting, and I feel like this is the right place to say it. So, first and foremost, for OpenPredict, we don't really take from your website. We take Google analytic data, CRM data, Google search console data. And then we take sales data for the last couple of years. And then we have an algorithm, obviously, which we've developed in-house, which is our kind of our secret sauce alongside some other pieces that we do as well. So, not an issue.

For OpenConnect, you're right that to access OpenConnect is a high-intentioned funnel. It is a link in your website. You would click and then you would go into the questionnaire. But if you have terrible website, then we're all in trouble really, because what do you do? Unfortunately, some home builders out there, that are in a tough position because they haven't spent that much money on a website before.

And I would say this irrespective of OpenHouse, like leaving OpenHouse and just talking as kind of sales and marketing aficionados, the three of us. I think that the home builders [00:22:00] I am most concerned for are the ones that don't realize that they have to spend money on their website to be able to keep up with the incumbents into their relevant markets. The larger homebuilders, the really big production homebuilders that are coming in, I feel nervous for them because I think they are in this weird position where they have people like us that are, you know, trying to sell them things.

And how do you sit down with someone and say, Hey, listen, Kev, your website's absolutely shite, by the way, will you buy my product? It's tough. It's a tough conversation. I probably have to have one of those in the next two months, which is fine. I'm happy to churn them. Fortunately, we're doing okay, but it's very hard to hear when people around you are saying, you're fine, man. That's great. You're doing great. And you know, that incentive you did and this and that and these.

So, the thing I'm most concerned about when you say that actually is I'm really concerned about home builders who haven't thought about redesigning or upgrading or refining their website, not because it [00:23:00] mightn't be good enough like it was five years ago. It's because you've got incumbents coming into your market with a lot of data and a lot of resources and a website that's been tried and tested 100,000 times over. They're coming for blood and they're not going to leave anyone outside their way. And the way to compete with those is showing that you to have the best quality homes. You sell the best quality product. And unfortunately, the way we do our research is we go online.

Kevin Weitzel: If you're a home builder and you happen to buy that right hunk of dirt, you can get away with having a homeless person with a cardboard sign with an arrow that says, new homes this way and you could probably sell some homes with that. However, when you're not in that prime dirt that everybody drives by on their way to work or on their way home from work, you have to implement technology and or wacky, inflatable flailing arm tube man out on the road instead of that homeless person with a cardboard sign.

It's that simple. You can buy the right dirt and just luck into some sales. [00:24:00] However, when the feet are to the fire, who is it? Was it Warren Buffett that said that everybody's an expert until the tide goes out and then you see who's not wearing clothes? And that really happens a lot. And I see it in the home building industry all the time where, oh, well, we sold 15 houses this year. That's what we did last year. We sold one more house than we did last year. This is great. It's like you could have sold 30 homes. You could have sold 60 homes.

David Lynch: Or Kev, you could have sold one more house, but really dialed your formula, like spent that year dialing the formula so that, yeah, sure, fine. If you just want to sell one more home the next year, but just be dialed so that when people come in, you're still competing, you really understand why you're beating your competitors. I think you make a great point, mate. Yeah.

Greg Bray: With the lead quality work that you guys are doing, do you have something going on where you're helping to personalize some of the work?

David Lynch: I don't want to talk too much to OpenHouse.ai. Winky, winky, winky face. No, but, um, so what we've done [00:25:00] is being a high intention funnel, the way it works is you actually fill out a very short questionnaire, so like six questions as to what you're looking for. And what we've done is we've listened to all the kind of the sales trainers and, you know, people out there that you can think of.

We've done our research on what kind of training works. We've understood what questions work, how we capture motivation, how we understand what they're frustrated with, what they're looking for in the future if you're just referring to like Jeff Shore as an example. And then what we've done is we put that into a questionnaire. Now, here's where things change is mostly if you look at a building price, you too, and you're looking to buy a house, you have to filter everything.

Like think about the experience of a building price. You have to go in and filter everything you're doing to go and find the home you're looking for. But if I can ask you a couple of questions, and I can personalize it for you, like Netflix, where you're given the suggested homes, and we've even curated the content. So, like it speaks to the family kitchen, or if you're a bachelor and you've answered the questions in a bachelor format, it speaks to the nice big kitchen for weekend festivities. You can imagine yourself in that home.

And [00:26:00] we don't want home builders to be trying to build the next-gen home all the time. Like sell the homes you built today, but like, get someone to envision themselves in the home you built today. And that's what OpenConnect is really doing. It's personalizing that experience, the buying experience so that they really feel like they belong there and they could live there. That's the big piece there.

Greg Bray: And so that wasn't necessarily a different kitchen that's been personalized. It's the way you're talking about the kitchen to make this particular buyer connect with that and see themselves there.

David Lynch: Yes. Yes.

Greg Bray: Got it.

David Lynch: Yes. Because not everybody needs like, and by the way, I want to say some of the technology out there is incredible where you can change kitchen countertop colors and types and etc. But also most people are just asking these questions. Like, will my kids eat their dinner and feel okay moving to Austin for my husband's or my wife's new job in this house? Will they sleep well? Like, does this make sense? Is that a nice TV room where we can also, like, have a good fun Christmas card game?

Like, they're [00:27:00] not thinking, like, if the countertop is brown, I know she's going to eat her dinner. If the TV space is big enough, I think we're going to be a really happy family. That's not how people are really thinking. That's not their motivation. They're motivated by, you know, change in life and what we're trying to do is speak to that change in life. Because if you do that, you capture them in their highest intention.

So that, and this is the most important thing so that your sales team aren't asking salesy questions, but they're being trusted advisors. So, they're coming in the room and they're going, I have your questions here. I saw the floor plans you looked at. Tell me a little bit more about your family. Tell me why Austin? That right there is you being a trusted advisor.

That is an enormously different experience to how many rooms are you looking for? Okay. How many bathrooms? You need two. Okay. You don't want that. And I took the 4-2 formula because I want to understand how people sell just as a heads up. I sat in through a weekend course because I wanted to get it figure it out and I know that personally, for me, if you can ensure that your [00:28:00] salespeople are set up for success by giving them the binary information and some of those motivators, they're going to be real trusted advisors and people will have a better experience as buyers.

Greg Bray: l Iove where you're going with that because so often we talk to people like, Oh, we want to personalize the website, and it's about, like, putting somebody's name on it. Like, hi, David, here's your new house. Yes, that's personal, right? Because it doesn't say hi, somebody else. But what you're describing is, it's not even personalizing the product is personalizing the emotional connection to the product.

David Lynch: Yes, you nailed it. You nailed it.

Greg Bray: Great insight. Well, uh, David, we appreciate the time you spent with us today. I'm sure there's more we could dive into, but want to be respectful of your time. Do you have any last thoughts or pieces of advice that you wanted to share with our audience before we finish up?

David Lynch: It's a weird time. And I would say to home builders out there that are listening, it's okay that it's a weird time. Don't hesitate to reach out to technologists and to your vendors and your partners, just to ask for advice in this weird time. Some of us [00:29:00] aren't always going to sell at you and we're happy to have a conversation. That's the only advice I would give.

Greg Bray: Awesome. Well, David, if somebody wants to learn more and connect with you, what's the best way for them to get in touch?

David Lynch: Telegram. Honestly, we haven't gone all the way there yet. So if you, it's dot dot dash dash dot dot dash. It's OpenHouse.ai and you can book a meeting anytime with the team. We'll get in touch.

Greg Bray: Well, David, thanks again for spending time with us today.

David Lynch: Thank you to you guys. This is a great podcast. It's a ton of fun and it's great to have something that focuses on these areas specifically.

So, I'm glad it's going well for you. And I'll see you probably at IBS, I'm sure. Yeah, thanks for having me on again. I really appreciate it.

Greg Bray: Yeah, our pleasure. And thanks again, 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. [00:30:00]