Sometimes all it takes to get ahead is to ignore conventional wisdom—or in this case, conventional ignorance. “Most builders in this area build a house and then pray,” says Will Edgington, co-owner of Cadence Custom Homes. “We want to be more proactive about it”
Marketing is especially effective for Edgington and partner Serge Goldberg because Grapevine, a small city near Dallas/Ft. Worth, is swelling with corporate transferees in need of housing. It’s a market controlled largely by Realtors, many of whom are wary of builders. The partners’ first order of business was to gain the attention and win the confidence of those Realtors.
They began by purchasing mailing lists of agents, commissioning a rendering of one of their houses, printing postcards, and licking stamps. The pretty picture catches their attention, Goldberg says, “and then it’s a psychological impossibility for them not to turn it around and see our name.”
The company also conducts a soft-sell “How to Select a Builder” seminar for Realtors and buyers, and it hosts periodic open house luncheons for Realtors.
About 7.5 percent of the company’s annual budget goes to collateral pieces and to paying Realtor commissions. Edgington and Goldberg won’t skimp on either. “We have written commission agreements with Realtors and we’ll register their customers,” says Edgington. “We won’t undercut them.”
