Julie Jarnagin (00:02.216) Okay, we made it. We didn't get eaten by a bear. I was at highest risk. Jackie Lipinski (00:02.217) We survived. Jackie Lipinski (00:08.544) for everyone. Yeah, you are definitely at the highest risk. Julie Jarnagin (00:14.478) So I flew to Washington. What was this, a few weeks ago, Jackie? Jackie Lipinski (00:19.336) Three weeks ago, yeah. Julie Jarnagin (00:21.142) Yeah, I flew up there because Jackie was planning a ladies backpacking trip, had a few open slots. And so I said, I'll come backpack Mount Rainier with you. Even though I didn't know what I was doing. Jackie Lipinski (00:34.476) with little, little to no experience, which I loved. Julie Jarnagin (00:38.444) Yeah, no, I've hiked, I've camped, but I've never like back, yeah, it's a different thing when you're carrying, you know, 30 pounds on your back up the mountain. Jackie Lipinski (00:43.232) It's intimidating. Jackie Lipinski (00:50.86) And it's funny too, cause you're like, oh, it's 30 pounds. And then you put like, you're like, well, I kind of need this. And then it's 40 pounds. And you're like, I, this is not the same as 30 pounds anymore. It's a little, water is heavier than you anticipate. Right. Julie Jarnagin (01:01.922) And water is heavy. Uh huh. So, went up there. It was so much fun. I had a lot of, my husband's a big hunter, so a lot of my gear was kind of hunting gear. So I had this kind of open tarp kind of tent that was kind of a little bit away, not away from their tents, but theirs was a little huddled together. So it was the running joke. It was the... Jackie Lipinski (01:19.244) Thanks Jackie Lipinski (01:23.382) You're at the edge and you're the one. And so, and then we accidentally sprinkled some food in front of your tongue and we're like, well. Julie Jarnagin (01:28.878) They kept dropping food right around my open tent. So that's why I was going to be the sacrificial lamb. But we had an amazing time. It was so much fun. If you ever get the chance to go take an adventure with one of your co-workers slash friends, Jackie's both. Jackie Lipinski (01:44.384) Yeah. And Beth's not here right now, but we did invite Beth and she said, I prefer room service. So that was her decision not to come because we did. Julie Jarnagin (01:54.432) It was, we would have loved to have Beth. We would have loved to have a lot of people from the team on there, but it was so much fun and I would definitely do it again. Now I'm like, okay, you've to put me on the list for this trip every year. Jackie Lipinski (02:03.936) I know. And that's what it is. So next year, so with these things and just how pre-thought I like to be, this is like six months in works when I have to make these reservations, like at midnight when they become available. And that's one of those things with anticipation that I know. And if I'm prepared, I get excited. And that's like the same thing with builders or pre-sales or certain things where you're just like, it's coming. And so once you know it's coming, you can get super excited. But I know Beth and Kevin were worried. Julie Jarnagin (02:13.261) Mm-hmm. Jackie Lipinski (02:33.988) But the bear situation we did not get eaten. You do not need to take over our 40 builders. Julie Jarnagin (02:38.67) I know, poor Beth was gonna have a lot of builders on her plate if we both got eaten by bears, but no, it went great. It was so much fun. All right, let's get started. Welcome to episode 401. I'm Julie Jarnigan and with me today is Jackie Lipinski. Hey, Jackie. Jackie Lipinski (02:56.588) Hello. How's it going? I loved, let me just say, I listened to episode 400 and I loved it. And if anyone is listening to this one, hasn't listened to 400, go get a listen. I felt like it was a nice little, I don't know, pick me up. And I think because it had 400 on it, you guys had to be so positive. So it was... Julie Jarnagin (03:15.95) It was like, it's a lot of pressure to be episode 400. You feel like it has to be special. And then every time we're like, maybe next time we'll do something special. And then it's always, you know, just us talking again. Jackie Lipinski (03:19.072) Nah. Nah. Jackie Lipinski (03:24.94) Every time I put it, I'm like, it's coming up. And then it's like, yeah, no, it's fine. Julie Jarnagin (03:29.596) It's just us chatting. Jackie Lipinski (03:31.722) and today. Julie Jarnagin (03:33.94) Awesome. Well, special announcement before we get started. The Online Sales and Marketing Summit is likely going to sell out by the time this episode airs. If you're still interested in attending and didn't get your ticket before registration closed, you can always reach out to us and we'll see what we can do. We'll see if we can squeeze you in, but you do need to go ahead and get registered if you're thinking about it. And you definitely, the hotel block always sells out and you want to be there at the hotel. So now is the time to do it. Jackie Lipinski (03:40.108) Yeah. Julie Jarnagin (04:02.72) I'm super excited about it. Countdown is on. I help with planning. Jackie used to do a ton of the planning. It gets busy this time of year. I know. Yeah, Jackie knows how busy it can get this time of year. But we've got lots of stuff in the works, and we're excited about it. Jackie Lipinski (04:08.364) Thank you for your service, Julie. I know exactly what you're like. Jackie Lipinski (04:18.796) My favorite thing about last year too was, so it's in Chicago again and they're talking about this thing. And I remember it was like, oh, and this tourist thing, this tourist thing. And I'm like, what is everyone talking about? It was the bean. It was like the real legal name of the bean. And I was like, no one calls it that. I was like, I've never heard of like whatever this sounds. Yeah. Hopefully I feel like. Julie Jarnagin (04:38.636) Well, cause Jackie is from that area. So Jackie, like she's, she knows all the, all the good places. Jackie Lipinski (04:46.154) But yeah, I definitely, it's my hometown. I love it. The food is phenomenal. And this year, it's a Thursday, Friday. And so we have a lot of people saying, I'm sneaking into the weekend. Are we allowed to say the theme or is that not yet? Julie Jarnagin (05:00.005) Um, oh, I think he only said I don't know if we are yet. We'll keep it secret. We'll keep it secret, but it's good. It's Right. All right, Jackie, you want to start with your storytime? Jackie Lipinski (05:03.104) Okay, we'll hold it back. Okay. We'll tell you at midnight tonight. Stay on your email. Jackie Lipinski (05:14.252) I do. Yeah, I love it. Okay, so you had a couple of topics, but one of them, so it's mid August, by the time you hear this, it's end of August. And it doesn't seem like it's the end of the year, but it's the end of the year in our heads and how we plan and how we need to have conversations and how we need to think about closing out the year strong still. And so that's like the macro micro point of view because I'm still seeing people being like, okay, well, week to week we're here. I'm like, great, pause. Julie Jarnagin (05:28.728) Mm-hmm. Jackie Lipinski (05:43.264) where do we need to be at the end of the year? Because I even had a builder last week saying like, know, last week was really slow. I'm like, okay, but was last week school starting? They're like, I forgot about that. So sometimes if we get a little too granular, it doesn't show us the big picture of what we need to accomplish. And so having these meetings and just understanding now, if we've been working this year, we kind of know what our... Julie Jarnagin (05:54.542) Mm-hmm. Jackie Lipinski (06:09.696) Well, we should know what our conversions are, how many leads it takes to make a sale, how many appointments it takes to make a sale. We can kind of do the reverse math of, if things, not to say that they're gonna work out exactly as they do for the beginning of the year, but if hypothetically they do, what do I need and what do I need to do as a marketer to support my online sales team to create opportunities and leads for them so that they can create enough sales and appointments to help close out the year. Um, and it always seems like the end of the year sneaks up on us, but this is something we should anticipate and at least have a game plan around. I don't know if you're having those same conversations. Julie Jarnagin (06:46.978) Yeah, this doesn't sound like fun, but it's time to do some math because, you know, goals change, conversion rates change, the number of leads that we can get that are quality leads right now have changed. So it's time to actually go dig back through your numbers. And I've had the same experience as you, Jackie. We were just talking about this the other day that the people, we love data. We love it, we love it, we love it. The people who track everything weekly, Jackie Lipinski (06:52.501) Yeah. Jackie Lipinski (07:01.612) Thanks for having Julie Jarnagin (07:16.192) It's so much harder because they panic if it's like one week lower of traffic or leads and it's like, well, wait, let's back this out a little bit. No, everything looks normal and fine and it bounces back. yeah, it's the week by week like focusing in gets to be too much. Jackie Lipinski (07:23.948) Zoom out. Jackie Lipinski (07:35.981) Yeah, I had one builder and their sales goals were about the same. And they're like, okay, well, you know, we were just having a conversation. And I was like, Hey, we let's talk about the quarter. Where are we versus last year? And what ended up happening in their data too, like talking about macro and micro was year over year. think, let me pull up their little notes. I think their traffic was down 8%, their leads were down 8 % and then their sales were up 4 or 5%. And so was one of those things of just. analyzing like, guys, we've actually been doing a great job with a full funnel analysis and supporting that. And also that helps us plan for, again, what we have accomplished, how we're getting towards our goals and what we're trying to achieve. And not everything seems scary at the forefront. We've actually got more efficient with our ads and more efficient with our lead follow-up. And sometimes you just need that. reality check in your data. Because right, sometimes we'll even do, OK, what's your cost per lead, cost per sale. And when you do the calculation for the rest of the year and it's crazy, there's an understanding of, OK, well, what is the achievable thing here? Is it the budget that has to explode? Is it the leads need to be created more suddenly from error? Is it that we need to handle people more appropriately and do more prospecting? That's maybe the realistic story of what we can accomplish. But that's a great, it's almost like at the Julie Jarnagin (08:33.304) Mm-hmm. Jackie Lipinski (08:59.112) middle of September to sit down, talk about where you are, come up with your numbers and work with your online sales and sales team to move forward to crush the goals. Julie Jarnagin (09:09.654) That date of when you can get closings for this year kind of creeps up on people too, where they're like, at some point, December stops counting. November, once you get into Thanksgiving, just things really slow down. So really, you don't realize, that's why it feels so close to the end of the year, because really that September, October are important months because November, December can be rough. So it's time. Jackie Lipinski (09:32.993) Yeah, it's almost, yeah, it's almost, I don't want to say wash, but I think that one of the sayings we hear builders say is it's people don't want to move when there's a Christmas tree up, you know, and they're having family events or things like that. So we've seen in the data last two years, at least like the day after Christmas, it used to be early February, but the day after Christmas, I think people have their parties and go, this is, this house is too small. They started aggressively shopping or at least window shopping. I'm in the bathroom searching for new houses. Julie Jarnagin (10:00.078) Yeah. Right, my family is too close to me right now. Julie Jarnagin (10:09.602) Exactly. Well, my story is from our backpacking trip. It's funny. There were three marketers on this trip, Jackie and I, and then one of Jackie's friends. And then we had a AC tech and then a physical therapist. Right. So we tried not to bore them with talking about like marketing things the whole time. But we did talk about a little bit of marketing things. Jackie Lipinski (10:10.346) Yeah, what do you got? Jackie Lipinski (10:15.35) I know. Jackie Lipinski (10:24.416) physical therapists are plus next to each other. Jackie Lipinski (10:31.24) happen. Yeah. Julie Jarnagin (10:35.054) But Jackie's friend was talking about going back home and seeing a billboard that had been there forever, she said, and it was still there. And it was IHateStevenSinger.com, right? Am saying that right, Jackie? Yeah, but then you go to it, you go to the website and it takes you to a jewelry company. It's like engagement rings and things. And so that got our wheels, especially Jackie's turning. Jackie Lipinski (10:47.542) Yeah. Julie Jarnagin (11:03.032) And she was like, my gosh, builders could do this, builders could do that, builders could do this. And kind of got her creativity turning. So I think it's an interesting concept. We are very data driven here. We're very much, we know it works and research, but there are times and markets and situations where you need to get a little creative and do something fun and think outside of the box. Well, Kevin hates outside of the box, doesn't he? Think a little more creatively about what's possible. Jackie Lipinski (11:28.096) reasonable. Julie Jarnagin (11:31.382) And so it was such a fun idea. And then we just kind of started talking about all the different things, ways it could relate to home building. Jackie had some great ones, but sometimes you've got to like take a risk, do something fun. If you have that budgeted to have a little experiment play money, and if it fits your, you got to make sure that original idea fits your company culture and brand. Jackie Lipinski (11:40.832) Yeah. Get outside. Yeah. Jackie Lipinski (11:58.559) Yeah, and I probably had that conversation with three builders about the I hate Steven Singer billboard because the story is it. That's all it says. I think it's a black billboard with white text and you go, wow, someone hates Steven so much like like who who does this? And then you realize that it's because like women love them and husbands hate them because that's where all the jewelry people spend their money on. And so I thought that was clever. I'm like, you know, the amount of builders that tell us we have the best looking homes by far. Julie Jarnagin (12:08.27) Mm-hmm. Jackie Lipinski (12:27.974) We have the best products. We build a quality product. I'm like, you're not, no one wants to say, well, because they stink, but you're allowed to say, we hate ugly homes. Like we, you know, we hate McMansions and then kind of go, it'd be interesting to go out and campaign because it's like, we build craftsman style homes or we build this. And, and just that approach of creating curiosity through awareness of that. Julie Jarnagin (12:39.224) Mm-hmm. Jackie Lipinski (12:54.846) was kind of what was spinning in my brain when we were talking about that. I thought it was a fun perspective of just you can do something a little different. And like she said, that billboard's been up for over a decade. And she's like, they haven't changed the strategy. And I'm not saying that needs to be a strategy for a decade. Please don't make that strategy for a decade. But it's a conversation starter with have you tried enough to move the needle? Julie Jarnagin (13:15.47) Haha! Jackie Lipinski (13:23.884) Because sometimes I'll see builders do everything right and they're like, it's still not working. like, yeah, it might be a, we've proved it's not an awareness problem. So maybe that's not going to work for you. So it needs to be a deeper conversation. But sometimes it's like, well, we can't outspend our competition. Then maybe we need to think differently. And what that means is different for every builder and all the products that they do build. But I always think there is, like, stay curious, have creative inspiration from outside and, Even when we work with builders to help develop their builder budgets for the next year, we always say there needs to be a line item for innovation, and that means something different for each builder. But consider that as you are going to the next step or thinking about things. Julie Jarnagin (14:00.75) Mm-hmm. Julie Jarnagin (14:06.188) And take, I'm the worst person at taking my vacation days. I would also say take a hike, go do something different, get out of your, like that's when you start getting ideas and thinking about things and you get, you know, eager to get back in the office and do more things. So this is me talking to myself about. Jackie Lipinski (14:25.653) and exactly. That was us hiking and we're like, caught, it was, me and Julie were brutal because everyone else on the, you're right, I hike was like, stop. And there were like three things. And I was like, I was like, we need to create a reel of like me and Julie going, that'd be great for the podcast. That'd be great. That's why there were snacks in front of our tents. Julie Jarnagin (14:42.67) Yeah, exactly. They were sick of us by the time we got down the mountain. Right, right, they were feeding us to the bears for sure. Jackie Lipinski (14:54.955) Well, I think it's fun and interesting. I think for next year too, there's so many conversations I'm hearing builders think of while we have our standard, I would say foundational categories and streams of traffic and getting people in. There's always the interesting experiments we see other builders do and try. sometimes you just have to learn, but there has to be some risk to trying something new. Julie Jarnagin (15:22.7) Yeah, and we love those builders that are willing to take a few risks. You know, there's some people that won't do anything until it's proven, which I understand if you're on a strict budget and that's all you have the time in the budget for, I get it. But the ones that are like, let's test this. It's fun. It's fun to test it and we learn from it every time, whether it works or doesn't work. It's good learning. Jackie Lipinski (15:43.328) Yeah. Well, and that's funny, Julie, you said that because I have a builder who had just a slashed budget. And what came up is I was like, this is fun for you now. I was like, because you're going to be tasked with the impossible. And so you're going to have to ask for things differently. So if you're being asked to drive traffic, it's like, OK, well, I can't, we can't hire anyone. So how do we do that free or how do we encourage that creativity in different ways? And so I think no matter what Julie Jarnagin (15:58.85) That's true. Julie Jarnagin (16:10.766) Yeah. Jackie Lipinski (16:12.329) kind of budget bucket you're in, there's always an opportunity to be like small but mighty and be curious and create ideas from, I don't want say from nothing, but just try something different with your limitations and think of them as a positive. Julie Jarnagin (16:26.892) Yeah, but yeah, you're right. Sometimes those limitations like help you be more creative. Jackie Lipinski (16:31.135) Yeah, for sure. Julie Jarnagin (16:35.18) All right, let's move on to the news from redfin.com. Home purchases are getting canceled at a record rate. It's interesting when we get an article like this, whether or not it fits, you know, what we're seeing builders talk about as well. And this one seems to go right along with what we're hearing. People are seeing more cancellations right now. Jackie, have you been hearing more cancellations from builders? Jackie Lipinski (17:03.243) Well, so I would say two things. One, when you see this title, you go, oh God, is that 50 %? What does that mean? How crazy is it? It just means from 2017, it was about 12%. It went down to 11.6 around 2021. And now it's about 15.3%. And I think we've been hearing for a while too, like about 15 % is kind of the benchmark number for the industry. Every builder has different numbers. But I would say, Julie Jarnagin (17:21.24) Mm-hmm. Jackie Lipinski (17:34.124) Yes. And also good marketers are more attuned to understanding what that means for them too. They're listening to the reasons and they're getting the reasons and they're trying to not just think through it, but also create game plans with their team of like, okay, well how do we make sure this doesn't happen again? Or at least understanding if everyone's at 15%, we also don't want to be at 1 % because that means we're not taking enough opportunities and write-ups and risks. But we don't want to be past 20 % because that means something else for us as a builder. But I would say I'm hearing that more and more, but not, quote unquote, record breaking or record shattering. It's just a little high. How about you? Julie Jarnagin (18:16.206) Yeah, and a lot of the reasons for it were failed inspections, which is great for new home builders because our inspections, as long as you're a quality builder, seem to not run into that same issue. Just cold feet. So maybe that's talking to your sales team about giving people that extra security and feeling like they've made a good decision. But yeah, mean, and two, just hearing about cancellations once they... Jackie Lipinski (18:23.219) yeah. Julie Jarnagin (18:45.154) get into financing, I mean, with affordability, that's always gonna be an issue. That's a harder one to combat. But yeah, I have been getting more of that, but a lot of times they can't, builders can't give me a good, it seems to be across the board reasons. A lot of times we're like, okay, you had higher cancellations. Jackie Lipinski (19:05.843) Mm-hmm. Julie Jarnagin (19:09.838) this month, what was it? Every once in a while it's because they have a lot of people kind of floating out there and they kind of all of sudden, you know, all those up at once and that's why it happens. But a lot of times they can't put their finger on exactly why it kind of comes in waves. Jackie Lipinski (19:13.289) I have a Jackie Lipinski (19:27.371) Well, that's, yeah. And so the ones who can recognize a pattern, there's a strategy or creative conversation around that. And the other ones, it's just like, well, so-and-so lost his job or so-and-so didn't decide to move or so-and-so couldn't sell their house or, um, there's a variety of different reasons. And it's not like they're saying it's not necessarily consistent, but, um, at least something to be aware of as a marketer and to be tracking that, or at least have an understanding of where that is. yearly, because it could paint a bigger picture too. Julie Jarnagin (20:01.996) Yeah, yeah, for sure. All right, our next story is from the Builders Daily. And it is, move now, buyers are still driving sales, are you ready? And this is by Barbara Ray. Life happens even in a slow market, job locations, family shifts, and urgent timelines create buyers who can't wait. Builders who anticipate their needs, especially with quick moving homes, win sales now and resilience later. I would say I agree and disagree with this one. We have been seeing a lot of builders rely more and more on their quick moving homes because of timelines and people worried about what the market's gonna do. I just in the last month though have had a few builders just anecdotally that all of a sudden their... Jackie Lipinski (20:58.379) should be built. Julie Jarnagin (20:59.138) build on your lot and to be built, had a great month or two and it was their quick move-ins that were standing inventory. I think it's hard to know exactly just based on two months. I think some of that is that there is some more existing inventory on the market and so it gets a little more price. There's more people that can compete with that in a home that's ready to move into. But yeah, I have just in the last couple months had a few builders who are are having more luck with their to be built. A lot of them with the higher prices, a few of them are more on the higher price of things. So if people are gonna pay a premium to get their home, they want it just the way they want it. They're like, if I'm paying this, I want it to be exactly like I want it. And so that's why their custom and to be built are a little bit more popular than paying that premium for something that may not be exactly what they want. I've seen it as a trend for a while, but just in these last few months, I've heard opposite from a few builders. Jackie Lipinski (22:04.703) Yeah, this morning I had a call with a builder and they said that all of their sales in the last month have been to be built. And I mean, the price range definitely changes. there's always, there's an ebb and flow, I think of what sells, what doesn't and how builders are also just positioning themselves. So like you said, it's like there are always going to be the, like Barbara's saying, there's always going to be the buyers who need to buy, who have the urgent need, who have to move. Julie Jarnagin (22:24.899) Mm-hmm. Julie Jarnagin (22:32.611) Yes. Jackie Lipinski (22:33.107) of a job or divorce or certain things like that. I'm saying like disasters. was like throw another one there because I feel like that's like everyone's leaving Florida. One of the things I would say is I'm seeing what you're seeing, Julie, in terms of it really just depends. And it really depends on the price point and the buyer, the home profile and what that price point is. Julie Jarnagin (22:35.266) death, diapers, diamonds, divorce. Yeah. Julie Jarnagin (22:55.938) Mm-hmm. Jackie Lipinski (23:02.601) Yeah, really, it's, I don't know, I'm not seeing as much of a pattern as she's saying, but we all want to be prepared for it. And we all want to be sure that no matter what, your messaging aligns. So another story from this week would be, had this call with a builder and we looked at all their ads and we're like, hey, you know, this community that you've brought to our attention is the third most visited community page on your entire site. Julie Jarnagin (23:31.459) Mm-hmm. Jackie Lipinski (23:32.108) Time on site looks great, users looks great, everything looks great. Now let's talk about sales. Okay, sales are not happening. Let's talk about why. And so we're looking at the page and Kianci on the team immediately goes, that's why it says from the 400s and the first available home is from the mid sevens. That's a different buyer, completely. And so that's also one of those things of like, you might be attracting people who is certainly telling them. Julie Jarnagin (23:52.072) Mm, yep. Yep. Jackie Lipinski (24:01.087) that you have move-in-ready homes from a price point, and then you go to your site and it's completely the wrong message. So just understanding too that there does need to be checks and balances of if you are saying, okay, well, all of our homes that are selling are the completed homes, well, are you talking about the under-construction homes with the ability to buy even? You need to analyze what you're saying. Julie Jarnagin (24:22.51) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that has been a challenge for a few of my builders, especially if they have one community that has townhomes and single family homes in the same community. And it's like, what do we default to first? Do we default to this beautiful $800,000 finished house with photos? Or do we default to this not very exciting garage of a townhome, but it's at 350? Jackie Lipinski (24:34.005) So, Julie Jarnagin (24:52.494) Yeah, it's two totally different products. So then that's a bigger conversation of how you split those up or if there's ways you can filter and have different URLs depending on where they're coming from. But it can be a real challenge, especially in those communities that have multiple products in them. Jackie Lipinski (25:08.415) and we'll release the answer to that question at midnight tonight. Julie Jarnagin (25:11.694) That's right. The other thing I was going to say about the quick move-ins, it also seems that it's been more of a challenge if you have a lot of national builders in your market who have affordable homes and they are slashing prices on those affordable homes and it gets hard to compete. So if there is somebody that's just basing things off price and square footage, sometimes it's hard to beat those big guys if you're a big size to a smaller builder. Jackie Lipinski (25:22.987) Absolutely. Jackie Lipinski (25:41.343) I hate cookiecutterhomes.com. I think there's knowledge and interest, and I think every builder is seeing their own unique problems. you almost have to come up with solutions and experiments, though, for yourself. But when you identify like that builder, if it's one of the top three pages of your site and it's still not Julie Jarnagin (25:43.886) There you go. Jackie Lipinski (26:06.559) getting there, there's something wrong. We're driving the traffic. It's not a traffic problem. It's a communication problem of, the next step of the community page and what we're promoting and talking about. So just make sure that as we're moving to end of year, I mean, the messaging, the conversations, the how things are being positioned, the differentiators, maybe there does need to be separated within two different messages because we want to find the right buyer and not just bait switch them. Cause if it becomes the second, you know, we're saying from the 300s, but all the inventory homes are Julie Jarnagin (26:26.702) Mm-hmm. Jackie Lipinski (26:36.235) at the single families that are 800, it's not going to be great experience for what we're trying to sell. And I think the audience is not going to appreciate that either. Julie Jarnagin (26:45.858) Yeah, yeah, there's not one simple answer. You kind of have to look at all of it, which is tough. All right, well, I think that's all we have today. Thanks for listening. Bye. Jackie Lipinski (26:55.371) Thanks everyone.