Modular home factories have only recently begun to see
production lines running at anything near capacity but will it be short lived
or will it continue upwards at a steady pace?
The answer to that question doesn’t rely on the number of
homes needed to rebuild NJ or other region’s disaster hit housing. Sales are
the engine that drives a modular home factory, not disasters. And sales can’t
improve unless factory management and owners begin looking at their sales staff
as the engine. Unfortunately very few do.
Many factories cut back on their force during the housing
crash and either put them on a pure commission basis or let go a lot of
experienced sales people in order to reduce payroll expenses.
If sales people aren’t performing, whose fault is it? Management
hires or promotes Sales Managers who have never worked in this position before
and then don’t offer any management training to help them to work efficiently with
a sales staff.
New sales people are not educated in the factory’s history
and product. It is assumed that if they want to ‘make money’, they will get off
their butts and learn it on their own. That’s how we did it and by God, that’s
how they should do it.
 |
| A seldom seen sight in many modular home factories |
Even the experienced sales people at the factory have not
been given the information needed to increase sales and bring in new builders.
A lack of effective training by the Sales Manager is a common factor in poor
sales and high turnover.
If sales people aren’t performing, then neither is the
business. A properly trained modular home factory sales force will increase
sales and builder satisfaction. The sad part in this process is that the Sales
Manager doesn’t know how to train a sales staff. Many just bully or bluff their
way along hoping that Sandy II will hit and more houses will be needed.
A confident sales staff will bring in more sales, more new
builders eager to join the modular factory’s authorized sales team and less
service issues. A confident sales staff wants to be observed making and closing
sales. A confident sales force works together to make their factory the best.
This is one of the few industries where a sales person can
be absolutely terrible at selling and when they are fired or quit; simply go to
another factory that will welcome them with open arms without question. What
does that say about us?
No wonder modular residential housing is only 2-4% of total house
starts in the
We are not training for success, we are not training at all!
