Many, many years ago my mom and dad told me not to play with matches. So guess what I did….I almost burned our house down! I was only 6 at the time but a house destroyed by fire is still gone no matter what the age of the little arsonist. Thank God I was able to put it out quickly because my dad also had shown me where the fire extinguisher was and how to use it!
A lot of small home builders are just like that when it comes to starting and running their business. They know what they have to do to build a house but they don’t know the danger signs of business failure . So here are 5 very important things that will lead to business failure.
1. Failure to build a Team. You probably have an accountant and a lawyer you could to talk to about keeping your business on the straight and narrow but I’ll bet you don’t call them very often. That’s a huge mistake. They are invaluable to your success.
Other people to add to your team include your modular factory salesperson and the management team at the plant. If they know that you are on their side, they will bend over backwards to help you. Get yourself a website builder and someone to help you with marketing. You can’t do it all yourself.
2. Failure to Establish a Niche. Sure, you’ll build anything for anybody, anywhere and anytime, but is that a niche? If you are hunting a deer, you don’t walk around aimlessly with a shotgun making noise and shooting wildly! No! You quietly find a spot before dawn along a path that you know deer travel and wait until you see your target. Most of the time it is a distance away so you use your rifle and scope to bring it down.
The same thing has to happen in your business. Find a target market, find a place that they frequent, stake it out and pick them off as they get near. If your niche is empty nesters, set up a booth at senior expos, for first time home buyers, push the Tax Credit advantage of your affordable homes, etc.
3. Failure to be Unique. Why should your prospects buy from you and not your competition? Evaluate your business for what makes it unique and attractive for your customers. Summarize your key selling points that make your product or service a 'must have' for your clients.
Prepare a very brief and easy to read checklist of things that you do that your competitors don’t. Green and Eco are two buzzwords that are great for in this list.
4. Failure to be Organized. You must have business and marketing plans. First you need to have a vision for your business. What are your business goals? How are you going to achieve those goals? What are you going to sell?
Second, you need to plan your time. If you are a disorganized mess, with to do lists on scrap paper all over your desk, it’s time to get a planner and use it. Your business needs your guidance, if you can not manage your time, how will you manage your business?
5. Failure to Market your Business. Marketing will make or break your business. There are hundreds of thousands of web sites, you have to continually promote your site to let people know you exist. If people do not know your site is out there they are certainly not going to find it by chance.
If you have a model home, marketing while important, is not as critical to your success. Location, on the other hand is crucial. If you have a good location where consumers naturally will see your model home, this in effect does a lot of your marketing for you.