The Great Recession taught many lessons, but as a VP of sales and marketing for a production builder, it taught me that sales is not a function of traffic, it's a function of appointments. At that time, walk-in traffic to our model homes and on-site sales offices dropped by 30% to 40%, yet our sales volume was increasing, not decreasing. Seeing this data, combined with a struggle to keep the retail hours of all the model homes fully staffed, caused us to make a permanent shift in how we approached selling homes. So, in late 2009, we scheduled our open-house hours for Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 5 p.m. Any other time was available, but only by appointment. This change drove more than 90% of customers to initiate interest via our online presence and sales team, with more than 70% of sales conversions from in-per-son appointments scheduled by that team. Sales grew by 20% or more per year until we ultimately were purchased by home builder NVR in late December of 2012.
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