97 Customer Expectation and Engagement Online - Mollie Carmichael Jan 26 2022

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.

And we're excited today to welcome to the show Mollie Carmichael who's a principal at Zonda. Welcome Mollie. Thanks for joining us today.

Mollie Carmichael: Thanks for having me.

Greg Bray: Well, Mollie, why don't we start with that quick introduction. Help us all get to know you a little bit better.

Mollie Carmichael: Sure. Mollie Carmichael with Zonda. I've been in the industry for more years than I'd like to admit. We're just going to say 30 plus years. Started out in the industry in [00:01:00] the development world. Home builder for 20 years, kind of as a practitioner, and the last 15 years as a consultant throughout the country. I do a lot of consumer research, a lot of product positioning, and frankly, I'm super passionate about our industry, but a lot of it I would say, in short, starts with the consumer first in everything I do, and then we bring it home in all kinds of different mediums and in the real estate world.

Kevin Weitzel: Well, that's the consumer first answer. What's the Mollie first answer. Tell us something about you, your personal life that we'll learn about you on this podcast that maybe we don't know from the industry.

Mollie Carmichael: Well, I will tell you, you know, honestly, because I am just so passionate about what I do and I do work a lot, I would tell you my number one hobby is really, and this is going to sound a bit corny, but it is my family.

I am the youngest of seven kids growing up. So, tortured as a child. You know, most people say the youngest of seven kids is spoiled, but in that dynamic, it really is the tortured one, [00:02:00] and so with that I actually have two kids and a lot of fun and we spend a lot of time outdoors. Frankly, they're now 21 and 23. Neither one of them really wants to hang out with me, so I do all kinds of things to draw them in. Whatever I can do, and let's be honest, my new kids are my dogs now, and I'm still trying, but I love art. I paint when I can, spend a lot of time in that category if I ever do get the time to do that kind of stuff. So, if you want a real hobby, that probably would be it.

Kevin Weitzel: Oil, water, acrylic? All of the above? What do you do?

Mollie Carmichael: All of the above. I mean, I mostly draw and I would say watercolor is tough to work with, but for me it's easier. I don't know why, and I love graphic design and that kind of stuff too, and certainly play dangerous in that world too.

Greg Bray: Well, Mollie, tell us how you decided to get into this builder industry. What kind of was the thing that pulled you into this particular career path versus doing something different?

Mollie Carmichael: It's really funny. I have a [00:03:00] funny background, but I didn't necessarily choose it. I'm going to be honest. So, I was going to school full-time and I had a short two week gig that I did at The Irvine Company, believe it or not, back in the day, and I remember walking into the office and looking around and I spent a day or two there. This was a long time ago and nobody had computerized really anything, and I'm like it's going to take them two weeks to get done what I could get done in an hour, and so this is a funny thing at a very young age, I wrote a one page proposal to them and said, if you guys bought me a computer, gave me an office, I could convert the whole office and we could really start to transform some of the reporting stuff.

To my surprise, I was, again, very young, to my surprise, they said sure, let's keep doing this. So, I was working full-time, going to school full-time and it was really interesting. I just got more and more interested in what they were doing. I would tell you, I mean, if they wanted me to go buy popcorn, I went and bought popcorn and I [00:04:00] did it all, right? Just grew up in the business through some of the smartest people in the industry and was just fortunate to be in that place and I just continued to run from there.

As a side story to this, my grandfather actually was a builder, it's a really interesting story, in Minnesota, and I kind of feel like there were some sort of supernatural guidance there too as to how I sort of fell into this. Even to this day I think, you know, as I'm asking questions to myself and things like that, I always feel like I have a special angel guiding me through this too, but I think it was a natural thing for me and it really just took off. So, it's kind of a funny story, started when I was like 18.

Greg Bray: So, now when you want popcorn, who has to get it?

Mollie Carmichael: Still me. In fact, I almost feel guilty asking anybody on my team to do anything like that. I actually am still bringing everybody popcorn. You got it. Yeah.

Greg Bray: Well, Mollie, because Zonda is this tiny little company that nobody's ever heard of. Just kidding, [00:05:00] but for those don't realize how many different things Zonda is involved with now, why don't you give us that overview of the company and the kinds of things you guys are working on?

Mollie Carmichael: I would say we're probably the largest data company as it relates to all things real estate. So, we track all actively selling projects to all future, from not only as starts, where lots are from a development perspective. For those of you who know like builder or architect or home plans, like all those things, there's all these pieces from an advisory team that's east to west coast. We have a media team that's tracking all things real estate and that's posted constantly.

We have events throughout the country from east to west coast. Things like if you are familiar with Future Place. We have a single family rental event coming up. We do a lot in the multi-family world. So, all things real estate we're pretty involved in, and if we're not reporting on a particular subject, [00:06:00] tell us, and we will. I mean, our goal is really to figure out where the market's moving and continue to not only help to report on that, but help invent the future at the same time.

Kevin Weitzel: How did Zonda grow? I mean, we had Jim Belfiore here in Arizona and he recently joined Zonda as well. The data that he gives, you know, our market is extra ordinary. It's ridiculous. I mean, granular, and I assume that now you add that to the focus of Zonda, and then you can actually expand that spread to nationwide.

Mollie Carmichael: That's right. So Zonda is almost like a conglomeration of a lot of really talented individuals, amongst talented companies that have all been acquired into one company. So, Metrostudy, Meyers Research, Hanley Wood, Belfiore. Quite a few of those groups are now all one group, and I think at the end of the day, that's why we have such a robust offering is not just the data services, but the [00:07:00] people that are working with the company. It's pretty cool. I really like it.

Greg Bray: One of the reasons we wanted to talk to you and I'm pretty excited is I know that recently you guys have been doing some research on consumer expectations and especially related to their willingness to engage online as far as how far in the home buying process they're interested in going. What was it that made you guys decide that that was an area to go research? Was there something that you were looking at and said, hey, we need to find out more about this topic that started that, or was it just we've been doing this for 10 years and now people are finally listening?

Mollie Carmichael: It's really funny. So, I've always been really focused on understanding what the consumer wants first. So, I've been doing that in all my past lives too. So, whether it was at The Irvine Company or working with Pulte. I would say my biggest passion really blossomed when I was at Pulte and then it just continued with me through my career, and when I went to the consulting side, I'll never forget saying, sure, no, I can help you with anything, any part of the country, I just [00:08:00] need to understand what your consumers want first, so if you could just load me up with what they want. I just remember people looking at me like, well, we don't have consumer research just go check out what everyone else is doing, and I'd be like, what? I mean, shouldn't we talk to them? Shouldn't we listen?

So, obviously we're seeing a huge shift in technology, and we're seeing a huge shift in how people shop today, and so we're always trying to stay out in front with what are the subjects and what are the things that are going to help continue to fuel our industry, and certainly, how we're shopping for homes is a big shift. Frankly, I think as an industry, we're behind. So, we've been trying to focus on all things that we possibly can to figure out and convince some of the builders and developers throughout the country because unfortunately, if we can't prove it, they won't do it. They don't care what Mollie Carmichael thinks. They care what their customer thinks. So, that's the only way I can fuel that discussion.

Greg Bray: So, Mollie, digging in deeper into some of these buyer expectations. You guys are out there talking to [00:09:00] consumers. You're doing these research studies. What are some things that are top of mind right now that you've discovered or are looking at that consumers want and are expecting from builders?

Mollie Carmichael: So, from a home perspective, I would say the biggest shifts that we're seeing, of no surprise, we're seeing a lot greater expectation in the technology world, but it's no longer a new sort of thing they're looking for. They expect it. If I'm buying new, it's sort of like when you go out and buy a new car, you know, you're not expecting to have, you know, a radio from 10 years ago, you want all of the latest and greatest technology in it, and that's where you get the premium for it.

One of the biggest things I think people are interested in today is what are people willing to pay for? So, where we look to is, depending on the buyer group, depending on the price point, depending on the geography, I'm going to tell you, Greg, you're going to hate this answer, but it really shifts depending on who the customer is and where it's at and how much they can afford.

That's our big focus is three things. How much can they afford? How many people are living in their household? Who are they serving? [00:10:00] What do they value most? When you have kids, you tend to drive farther to get a yard and a bigger house. When you don't, you tend to want lifestyle and meet people like me. Short answer, but more complicated than I like to admit.

Greg Bray: How about from a buyer journey standpoint, specifically, since we're The Digital Marketing Podcast, looking at the online interactions and the things that they're expecting to see, you know, on a builder website versus having to go into the sales center and some of those trends, what are you finding there?

Mollie Carmichael: It's a really good question. I would tell you, that's probably one of the categories I'm the most interested in our consumers search right now and it's because it's shifting. Two years ago, the even discussion of buying a home online was ridiculous. We're really starting to see those buyer trends shift, but the challenge is the builders have to stay up with what makes that experience easy to make an easy decision. We're starting just to see those numbers shift and we're starting to track them, obviously by fire groups and things like that, cause once again, [00:11:00] as you might imagine, that younger buyer, they don't know life without buying stuff online, and the older buyer is like, really, you want me to buy that without seeing it?

So, it's really interesting to track some of those trends and we're just starting to see those inch up quite a bit, but the more successful are the ones who are doing it right and well, and making that experience seamless and easy to follow. I would end with that's the greatest challenge in our industry right now is figuring all of that out, but we can really track online how many will actually consider and in what formats and things like that, and that's been very interesting to follow.

Greg Bray: You implied that yes, younger buyers, more comfortable online. I think that is intuitive to all of us, right? That they're ready to do that. You know, slightly older buyers, more traditional in their interactions, I guess we could say. How much of that really changes what the builder needs to be doing, in your mind, up until the very last step of the actually hit the buy button? [00:12:00] Is all the rest of it still kind of the same until someone finalizes that transaction, or do you think it changes earlier in the process as well based on what they're looking for?

Mollie Carmichael: So, once again, this will be an unpopular answer, but when you look at how you buy a car today and we'll use the very simple one cause it's certainly a buzz today, Tesla. If you can go through the process seamlessly and it's easy to follow and you go online and you can choose the car I want it. It's very transparent. The prices there as I choose different packages, and there aren't 3000 packages. There are very simple packages to choose from. I get to the end of that experience. They simply ask you for a pre-qualification. $250 you can buy that Tesla. Boom. I buy it. It's that simple. We don't have a single builder doing that today.

Kevin Weitzel: Mollie, you know what? It's funny you bring that point out because I am wholeheartedly a believer in what the auto industry has done and how it should be [00:13:00] transforming the home building industry. For people that have worried about buying options. You've been buying options every single car you've ever bought. There's letters in the back of every car LX, DX, S model. All those letters just mean that it came with this package. They came with this setup. So, it does amaze me that those hold backs, if you will, are not even remotely valid.

Mollie Carmichael: But here's the transition right now. We're seeing it first in the automobile industry and we're starting to see it in the home builder industry, and probably for the same reasons, but what we're seeing in the automobile industry right now, and much of it had to do with COVID and the not being able to ship things out fast enough, all of that.

So, today when you go buy a car and I just went through that experience twice in the last month, they'll basically say to you pick out what you need. Honestly, it's not going to be on a lot today. It's going to be here in a month, but you get exactly what you want and you just quickly go through that process and boom, you're done right.

Let's be honest, three to five [00:14:00] years ago, you're buying what's on the lot. You go in, you drive it and just done you touch and feel, and it feels so great and boom, but today it's just shifting dramatically. We're sitting at home and buying milk and eggs and whatever online. It shows up seven o'clock at night, you're done. COVID pushed us into a world of a digital lifestyle, and now we've basically said I can do better things with my time, get exactly what I want. It shows up at the door. Because of the experience we've had in the last year and a half, I believe that's what's catapulting the home building industry into understanding that. They've had probably less time to prepare for it, right? So the automobile industry has always had that. So, it's really pretty interesting.

Kevin Weitzel: So, a follow up to that. We know that there's a generational difference between, you know, the willingness of a millennial or even our age group that's willing to get into, you know, the digital aspect of it.

Mollie Carmichael: The Gen Xers that no one wants to talk [00:15:00] about?

Kevin Weitzel: Exactly.

Greg Bray: What do you mean by our age group, Kevin?

Kevin Weitzel: I'm not going to lie. I know where I'm at, so, but we worry that the older the baby boomers, aren't being able to pick it up, which we know for a fact they do and they can, but you know what I'm finding, and I want to know if you're seeing the same thing and what's the term for it that's not offensive? The dinosaurs, the old codgers, which one is less offensive? Old codgers?

Mollie Carmichael: I think they're all kind of offensive.

Kevin Weitzel: Yeah, I know. Do you find that some of the old codgers that are at the helm of some of these home builders are actually holding back their marketing teams from moving forward? You know, cause I hear it all the time where, you know, the marketing little assistant person comes over to me and says, I'd love to get IFPs and VRs for our product, and then come to find out, it gets shot down by brass. They're like, it costs what?

Mollie Carmichael: Well, here's the insulting part, I think. The insulting part is that the boomer or the older buyer is not buying online because they're not as technically savvy and I just think [00:16:00] that's wrong today. I mean, you aren't living life today without technology. Frankly, they're spending just as much time. It's just a different thing because they don't consider it their right arm. They consider it just a tool in their life amongst others.

I can quote the statistics right now. 69 to 70%, whether you're a boomer or the silent generation would only consider buying in person, but it's 44% for Gen Y and 52% for Gen X. So, today it is a much bigger number in the younger generation, but here's why. The boomers and the silent generation, they've made mistakes, they've lived, it's a trust issue, and so it really comes down to how much do they trust in the process and how do you gain that trust? Again, I bet you if we did those same numbers for Tesla, you would see boomers and the silent gen being one of their biggest buyers, if not their biggest buyer, because they're the highest in net worth, and they've made that experience seamless, trustable. You can go touch [00:17:00] and feel the model, and then yours shows up, a month later. So, once again, I think we just have to apply a more seamless process to what we're doing, and not to say, I don't want to sound arrogant at all, I work with some of the most brilliant builders and developers in the country. We're just learning and there's so many components to this and it is the biggest purchase you're ever gonna make. So, you just have to do it right.

Greg Bray: So, let's peel back trust a little bit more then, Mollie. Where do you see the trust falling off? Where are we failing as an industry to establish the trust that we need with our buyers? Any thoughts there?

Mollie Carmichael: So, the biggest difference between buying a home and buying a car or buying a pair of tennis shoes is the product you're selling in a home is the location. It's the land. The house has really the accessory and so many people miss that in home building and in home development. So, that's the core difference. Helping them to understand and experience why this location and where they're [00:18:00] going to live is the best place you possibly can. Much of them do that research on their own. And then the home experience it's making that home experience again much like the car, right? So, if I know the models and I can go touch and feel that, and I can go pick that somewhere else then great. The difference is the shoe is done, the car is done. They can go see an example of it, and it's going to be something like this, and you can now trust my quality. Now, come buy it over here. So, I think it's the locational factor. I think oftentimes they sell the house and only house.

Then the second part is, which is funny. The house is important and they want to trust the quality and what they're going to deliver. So give me something, so I really understand who you are and what I'm going to get because after all, with all the power we have today as consumers they really are the buyer and the brand today, not in the builder.

Greg Bray: I remember you recently did a presentation that I saw where [00:19:00] you had a stat in there about the trust comparison between used car salespeople and home builder salespeople or something. Am I misremembering who the comparison was?

Mollie Carmichael: No. So, there was a recent study done, and actually somebody had shared this with me. They basically asked, as I understand it, is the trust in sort of salespeople in the car industry versus the home industry and people today were more confident, and it's such a terrible thing to share, but they were more confident in the car salesman side. And I will tell you again, just recently buying two cars, it's because it's very transparent today. It's so easy to do. You see the model. You've got all these sources that double-check. Yes. I'm getting this add invoice or under invoice. It's just a much more transparent process today, and the car industry, I think has figured out the online selling thing too. It's easy. It's simple. It's clean.

Kevin Weitzel: The reputation that the auto industry has, especially once you hit what they call the FNI [00:20:00] table or the FNI desk, the finance and insurance, the guy that writes all your paperwork and makes you sign everything, or it doesn't make you, but pretty much makes you. You want to drive home today? You need to sign this stuff. The connotation was that you were going to get slammed with a whole bunch of fees and services that you didn't really want to get or don't need and now it's all relatively transparent. It has to be in the contract. They're even putting it online. Here's the out the door price and three years ago that didn't exist. They didn't want you to know the out the door price, because then you can compare what the actual apple is.

Mollie Carmichael: Well, I think the other thing too, there, there's some funny things too, that I believe in buying a home that would make a critical difference. Think about everything you buy online, you can return it. It's super easy, right? I mean, like you buy something from Amazon. Yeah. No, don't like it and I'm just gonna throw that back and that's awesome. If you could return a home if you didn't love it, when you moved in, wouldn't you be more likely to purchase quicker? Right? Oh, by the way, if I bought that home back, in today's day and age, it's probably worth 10% more anyways, you could always do [00:21:00] a restocking fee, right? Like Pottery Barn, if you buy a couch, you can return it, but it's a 10% restocking fee. Now, go get what you want. I mean, they really have to figure some of that out too I think in this process. I think it would change the industry.

Kevin Weitzel: You made somebody's head explode in Texas. In these big markets where they're like, we got people on waiting lists. They just went boosh. Buy back.

Mollie Carmichael: Right. Right. No, seriously. I think they would see incrementally higher sales activity with that concept.

Greg Bray: So, Mollie, I've talked about this with some other folks, but I think the builder industry, from a marketing standpoint, is missing the power of leveraging their warranties, along those same lines. Maybe you can't return the home, but hey, if anything goes wrong, you can get it fixed and get it updated or corrected for whatever time period. It's something that we're providing as an industry anyway, but it's almost like warranty's a bad word because it's like admitting that something might go wrong instead of everything being [00:22:00] perfect. Maybe there's a way to twist that to say, you can trust this because we're not disappearing the day you get the keys. We're here for another 12, 24, whatever months to help you make sure that you're happy with what's going on.

I don't know. I just think, I think there's opportunity there too, to help establish more trust. It's all about that trust that I'm going to get what I think I'm going to get for my money, right, and enjoy it the way I expect to.

Mollie Carmichael: It could be. So, I don't have consumer research to support this, Greg. It's a good question to ask if that is an issue, but I would tell you when you buy a new home, your expectations are the warranty, is less critical because I'm buying a new home. So, I don't know that there's ever the fear that your home's going to break the first year or even the second year, and I know structurals covered and in all companies for the most part for 10 years. I don't know that I've ever heard that being an issue.

Greg Bray: I was going more for the sight unseen buyer, I think, as opposed to the one who's been there. I think I was looking more at that online [00:23:00] sight unseen type of buyer being able to connect that.

Mollie Carmichael: You know, I think a lot of times when we see sight unseen buys it's because they've done so much homework. They've studied it, they've been there, and so it's really not sight unseen. It's kind of like when you buy the car, I've already driven the car a thousand times. Now, I'm just going to pick out the model I want and all the stuff. Yeah, it's a good question.

The other thing I've seen, certainly working for Pulte back in the day is we'll have somebody in Michigan who loves their house. They want to buy that same home in Florida. So, they know the quality, they've lived in it before, they know Pulte, they trust them. You know, I want to buy another one, but the warranty is I haven't seen come up. If you're a good builder, and I would say most of the builders are this way, if you have any issue with your home, they're going to take care of you.

Greg Bray: It's just about getting that message out. So, again, it's about trust.

Mollie Carmichael: It's a good point. Yeah. No. I think that's a great point. I just haven't studied that part.

Kevin Weitzel: I'm more of an exception to the rule. I've only bought one brand new home and just by pure virtue of the timeframe that I bought it, when [00:24:00] I would have been able to deal with some warranty stuff, the company went out of business. It's just the way it is.

Mollie Carmichael: Oh. Ouch.

Kevin Weitzel: Trend Homes. They came, they went. They were a victim of the big market crash, so...

Mollie Carmichael: Yeah, it's really interesting. I do think that people do more research on builders today than they used to before because of some of that, Kevin. So, I think that's an interesting point for sure. I know for me, that would be important is I would want to trust that builder is going to be there and in 20 years, for sure.

Kevin Weitzel: Yeah.

Greg Bray: Well, Mollie, we could keep going all day. I'm enjoying this conversation a lot, but we want to be respectful of your time as well cause we know that you've got a lot other things to do besides talk to us. So, just a couple more questions. So, are there any other big trends that you guys are watching or looking over the next, you know, year or two that you're kind of keeping an eye on?

Mollie Carmichael: Yeah, I would say the biggest trend that we're keeping our closest focus on. I mean, I'm always tracking, again, what consumers want and what they'll pay for in a home and a community. That's a given. We've been doing that for decades. The one I think we're keeping the closest eye on right now [00:25:00] is exactly what you've touched on is just how the whole sales process is changing and how buyers are becoming more receptive to that and then what it means to be transparent online and to make that experience an easy experience. That's probably our biggest focus today.

We just purchased BuzzBuzz, which is a website that basically attracts all new home communities throughout the country and really providing an experience that's seamless and easy and helping them to really understand, I think. It's not only needed, but it's important, and Newhomesource.com. I think they're fantastic too, but I don't know that anyone's really cracked the code there, and I think we really have to continue to figure that out and then get them to the individual builder experiences. Once again, are easy, seamless, and respectful of people's time. You want to get through it quickly without feeling like you need a map to figure out how their website was set up.

Greg Bray: Well, Mollie, do you have any kind [00:26:00] of last pieces of a sales and marketing advice to share with our audience today we didn't get a chance to touch on?

Mollie Carmichael: You know, I would say that the biggest challenge out there right now, Greg and your team certainly is a great provider of solutions in this category is I think what's happening right now is we have this old way of how our website was set up and then we're trying to transition this to a buy now format and so it's kind of like they're appending this stuff on there. The reality is they need to clean it and start over. The hardest part when I go to websites today is they're just a mess. It's like they just threw this stuff on top of what they had and you're trying to climb through it. It's painful. Honestly, it's painful.

Tesla's a great example. Porsche is a great example. It's super clean, easy to follow. I feel like they totally respected my time. It's almost like I want to go back to it and dream day after day, just pretend that's going to be my car. You should be the same way with homes.

Second to a news channel, HGTV [00:27:00] or all home channels are the second most viewed in the country. People should be going to their websites and playing and dreaming and thinking, and we just don't have that today in the home building industry. We will. We just don't have it today.

Greg Bray: That's some great food for thought there. I'm already taking it all apart and building it all over again in my head.

Mollie Carmichael: I can imagine. You just keep going, Greg.

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

Mollie Carmichael: I would say email me mcarmichael@zondahome.com.

And feel free to look me up on LinkedIn or any of those sources. I'm pretty transparent phone number, everything is there and happy to help anyway I can.

Greg Bray: Well, Mollie, thank you again so much for sharing with us today. I think it's been a great conversation. We really appreciate your time.

Mollie Carmichael: It was fun. Thank you guys. Thanks for having me

Greg Bray: 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.