We are Listening. We are also responding. First, let’s say what we are hearing.

1) INdustry Pros want solutions to the financing issue.
2) INdustry Pros want solutions to Industry image issues.
3) INdustry Pros know that sell more new homes for us to continue as a viable industry. We’ve had 12 years of declines: as an industry can’t have declining shipments for years 13, 14 and 15.

These are some of the items that keep popping up in discussions, in emails, in comments. I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that we get tons of compliments and pats on the back, by phone, email or posted comments. Nevertheless, this isn’t the time to rest on laurels, there is LOTS of work to do.

Together, we can do it.

Let’s look at these three topics briefly.

1) Financing:
• The heavy lifting on the financing issues will be solved in part in Washington, DC. This requires association and advocacy efforts. We feature the latest MHARR and MHI (alphabetical order) on their reports on these matters.
• We have also directly addressed some of these issues with Bill Matchneer at HUD. Watch for the exclusive interview in our new March issue which goes live in about 72 hours.

• Mobilization. Let’s be honest with each other. Associations are a key to getting positive changes done. Associations also need to mobilize current members and get more people involved. If we – as INdustry Pros – pounded Congress and HUD with our concerns and desired solutions in great numbers, isn’t it obvious that thousands of INdustry Pros sounding off to Congress and HUD would get things moving along?! See 500,000 Reasons for more details. Additional insights on this below.

2) Image. From our own marketing efforts – which is the key to what pays the bills for IT Manager Bob Stovall and myself at www.MHMSM.com – we frankly have hands on experience at marketing, sales and image makeovers that work.

• Not some sexy multi-million dollar Madison Ave ‘maybe it would work if we had tons of money,’ but practical solutions that can work rapidly and at very low costs. See View from the Trenches and Time for a Cool Change for current examples. See http://www.linkedin.com/in/latonykovach We aren’t talking ‘sexy,’ we are talking practical ways to ring the phones and sell more homes!

• Virtual Housing Show. By whatever name we end up calling it (a point of discussion with association leaders), part of the solution to image building and selling more homes in 2010 and beyond is the Virtual Housing Show program. In a nutshell, the Virtual Housing Show program will sell more homes at both retail and wholesale and will be one element of image makeover that IS sexy for the MHIndustry.
• Volunteers and Sponsors. We need both Volunteers and Sponsors. We are seeing people on these pages, but we need more people ‘pulling the trigger’ and making a commitment. Just as we created www.MHMSM.com and have in a few months became the #1 Industry trade journal, so too we can create a new Image Building campaign for the Industry and those who participate will get the thousands of new leads from prospects who will see factory built housing with new eyes. Together, we can change the way Manufactured Housing Marketing Sales Management is done.

But it takes some team work, and we need your help. Not waiting on someone else, not the next person over, you and your firm. Let’s make it clear. By volunteering, by sponsoring, we can create new platforms that will attract a volume of retail clients. Just as we’ve offered you quality and have great numbers of INdustry visitors here, so too we will create quality and bring far greater numbers in retail demand that will create orders for factories, demand for loans, products, services…everyone wins. Help us help you. Advertise. Sponsor. Volunteer. Let’s be clear, the winner is you. You can’t reach more Industry pros for less anywhere than through www.MHMSM.com. Jobs, Classifieds, custom ads, banners to your website and more. We can make it happen for your firm.
• Or volunteer. 100 people for 90-120 days will utterly transform our industry. Just using time, the phone and the web. 100 sounds like a lot of people, but it is really only 2 per state. That’s nothing. Bob and I volunteer hundreds of hours a month for this cause! Bob and I both work full time marketing – if we can do it, you could too. But I’ll bet if you don’t have the time, you know someone who does. Please help us get those volunteers. What we’ve done here is the tip of the iceberg…we can transform the way the industry works with volunteers. Or with more sponsors. Take your pick.
3) Selling More Homes. Financing. Virtual Housing Shows. Image and Marketing. Selling skills and systems that work in 2010. All of these are elements to selling more homes.

• Selling more homes is in part about marketing. Obviously, you need financing. But it is about lead handling and sales skills. It is about Marketing, Merchandising and having a SYSTEM that works.

• Let’s be candid. There are MHCs, REITs and other LLCs (for example) that have in house lending and/or rent-to-own programs. So they have lending. They have marketing programs. They have sales staffs. They aren’t closing the numbers to keep their own vacancies moving in the right direction. Many have the resources available, but still aren’t getting the results. If you have the resources and aren’t getting the results, it is obvious you have to make positive changes. You don’t market a 2 star property the same as a 5 star. You don’t market a transitioning community the same way you do one that is already 4 or 5 stars. Every property has to be marketed according to its own unique local circumstances. That isn’t cookie counter work; that requires tailoring to set needs.

• Selling more homes is also about selling skills. If you’ve ever been mystery shopped and your staff has failed, what did you do next? If you’ve got traffic coming to your doors, but they aren’t getting closed, what are you doing about that problem? As Tim Connor says, What is your lost business costing you? As John Underwood says, you can Flourish or Perish in 2010. As Mike DuPure – a gent who knows first hand how to close double digit sales in a month at a single location says, “It is Back to Basics and back to the Future.”

We could talk about other things we are listening to, like the growing numbers of industry pros who write or call and ask, ‘Tony, are you going to Congress?’

By working Together, we can solve the challenges and turn crisis into opportunity. We all have needs, and each of us has something the other needs and wants. There are tons of free resources right here, right now. You can start with those. If you need to advance your cause beyond ‘self help’ or ‘do it yourself,’ if you’ve got the resources and aren’t getting the results, please give one of our pros or myself a call.

Help us help you! Volunteers and Sponsors short term. Hundreds have signed up for the Virtual Housing Show…thousands have surfed those pages!  That’s clear readiness and desire.  FYI – We are waiting on discussion timetables with associations to move that ahead.  We have that and other initiatives that can go to work now, today.

Help us help you. Spread the word. Get more people to these pages every day. Have your own staff reading these pages every day.

Your business can flourish in 2010. As you’ll see in an article in our new issue, your business is the industry. If your business grows in 2010, as other businesses grow in 2010, so will the INdustry!

Let’s listen together. Let’s work together. Stay tuned for our new issue, which goes live in about 72 hours. There is a world of good things in the mix.

Together. We can make good things happen. ##