Wins of the Week – The Shaw Homes Story | The Marketing Director of Oklahoma’s Largest Home Builder Shares About Their Growth

Audio Transcription

On today’s show, we interview Aaron antis, the marketing director for Shaw homes, which is now Oklahoma’s largest new home builder, so he can share about how his business coaching experience with the thrive team has allowed his company to scale and to become the largest home builder in Oklahoma.

He can do it and you can too. And now it’s time for another edition of

you can do it.

And now we start the story with Aaron antis sharing about how we first met.

Yeah. So, um, we had a competitor that all of a sudden was crushing it in the market and they came out of nowhere and started dominating the home sale market in Tulsa. And I got really ticked off. And then one day Steve Currington calls me and he says, Hey, uh, Klages fired this client executive homes. And I’m like, what are you talking about? Who’s clay and what are you talking about? He’s like, yeah, that’s their marketing company. So he’s like, you should come talk to clay. So I walk in here with Steve and I’m like, so you’re the one who’s been helping?

No, Newman. Newman.

So, uh, so basically at that point it was like, yeah, of course I’m going to do business with you. You just showed me that you can do really well and you didn’t even know the homebuilding industry like I do. So it really ticked me off and when I get mad I try and get even, so now I’m hanging out getting even on executive homes

and we worked together for about two and a half years I think. Yep. Yep. And us, that’s how I know pastor Brian is through Aaron. Yup. Professor Brian needed some help and that’s how you might have that job. So the song this, um, can you explain maybe some of the things that you’ve learned since you’ve been in the program because you already knew how to sell a lot of houses before we got involved with you. You were already selling a lot of houses, but kind of explain your, your story, um, of what you’ve learned in the last couple of years and how it’s impacted the growth of shock. You guys are up quite a bit.

Well, yeah. First of all, um, I did create a website just now. It’s Zs for clay and vanessa.com. It’s a crowdfunding site for a new mattress for them.

But, um, that’s a side I know.

So, uh, I’ll get a mattress. Yes, that’s true. So I’m actually, some of the things that I learned during the business coaching for home builders was first of all, video cameras, call recording and, um, creating a path for the customer. So, um, create like I’ve always been a good salesman. I’ve done a ton of sales over the years in new homes, but what I know is that I can’t be there 100% of the time and I needed more duplication of that. So, um, one of the really cool things about video cameras is it makes you realize what’s going on in a remote environment. And I didn’t see that before and we found out some pretty outlandish things as soon as we did that. Like the fact that some of our employees were stealing from us, some of them were leaving during the middle of the day and not coming back for hours. Um, so it created a more of a culture of accountability in our company.

And then same thing with phone calls being recorded. Um, it made me realize rather than somebody being very professional answering the phone and saying, Shaw homes, this is Aaron and says, how can I help you today? It was more like, Hey, what up, what’s going on? And so, um, that’s not cool by the way. We don’t want to do that. So, so that helped a lot to just kind of get a little bit more accountability on top of that side of things. And then, uh, it helped me be able to coach my team a little bit better cause I can see things that are happening. Like this weekend I saw, um, one of our people who’s in our Oklahoma City office not following our process at all, even though she knows to do that. And so, uh, I was able to make a phone call as soon as the people left the model home and say, Hey, I was just watching you on that, uh, that interaction with that customer and tell me what your thoughts were about the stuff you were presenting.

And she immediately goes, oh my gosh, the reason I didn’t cover it, like she starts telling me that. So it was interesting, but it made for a good coaching moment with her and she’s like, yeah, I got to get better at that. And so, um, I feel like our team has improved a lot in just implementing those things. I actually brought chase Scott with me who is a superstar of ours. Um, you can raise your hand there, chase, just so they know. So she’s gone to a male model. Yeah. So, um, but chase has like improved dramatically just in the time he’s been with us. He was already a good sales person, but he’s gotten a lot better here in the last couple of you talked about no brainer, no brainer. Yeah. Getting reviews, both video and so at as far as the no brainer.

So we offer a free pearl necklace from Jay David Jewelry if they come on a mobile home tour with us. And so something interesting about that is that previous to offering the no brainer, we were getting a few leads here and there occasionally like once a week off of our website and now we get anywhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 15 a day. So it was like literally about 1200% increase in internet leads for us right off the bat. So it’s not, that’s not a small amount, like 12 times the number of leads that we used to get. So the no brainer has been a huge thing for us. And then, um, Google reviews, we had like four after 35 years in the business. Seriously, we had like four Google reviews and we were, if you could be less than a one star, we would have been less than a one star because we just had four haters hating on us.

So we started doing reviews. I noticed at about 40 or so that people started, like when they would contact us, they were like, oh, we’ve heard so many good things about you guys. And then of course we always like to peel the layers of the onion and find out like, well what did you hear? And so the answer was, we actually read your Google reviews. And so it was like, oh, okay. So you like us because of our Google reviews. Then at a hundred we literally had people walk in the door and go, we’re here to get our home from you guys. But first we needed to come meet you cause we’ve never been in your homes before. And then when we would ask them, it was like, oh my gosh, you guys have the best reputation of any builder in Tulsa at a hundred reviews, which is ridiculous. And so now we’re in the 439 range.

And I’ve worked with other home builders before and some of them will have a lot of quality issues, like a lot. And no one’s perfect. I don’t care if you’re doing hair. Oh, when do you know Dolphin Room? I know how much training we do. If you’re cutting hair, I’m cutting hair. Anybody, we’re not going to get more than probably 97 out of 100 haircuts. Right? Right. Because nobody’s perfect. You can do your best, but show you guys are, you know, consistently in the high 90% satisfaction, 97, 98 people are always happy. Um, and so John Actually decided to buy a house from you guys and you guys are our neighbors now. How far are we part? Do you guys have

a stones throw? We know cause I’ll have [inaudible]. No, you guys aren’t.

Then through that process though, John was able to share with you how some of the nomenclature and some of the jargon and the home industry, he didn’t understand some of those things. John Process is getting more and more refined. And then also, um,

that was actually the best fixed we made. Honestly it was the, I call it the John Kelly method. Yeah. Now we literally call it that. We’re naming a floor plan after Hartford right now. So, um, but yeah, he, he didn’t understand the language, you know, of the things we were talking about in the home. And so he’s like, I need pictures, I can’t understand this without pictures. So we created what we call the price out process, which is a whole bunch of photos of things. And it was amazing how much it transformed the experience with our customer.

So Aaron, I met, uh, Roy through Aaron. You guys met Roy is a great client and Roy and here and are part of a men’s prayer group I believe. Yep. Or You guys get together and just kind of pray for each other. Yep. And uh, that’s where Roy came from and pastor Brian came from. Aaron just been a great, a great client. Um, how many of you have done some work by show of hands for show homes on some particular part of the, keep your hand up there. You go around the horn and you’re, so Melissa, what have you done for Shaw homes? Calls for fulfill. There’s training academy. Okay. Amanda, what have you been doing? Okay. And we’ll write articles. Content who’s articles are better? I mean Amanda’s, well no, she usually uploads and then we’ll usually, right. So a nice way to dogs then

it’s [inaudible]

wouldn’t even know who else has been helping all sudden police. What do you mean real estate photography? Jordan. Different design stuff. Cool. Now I want to ask Devon, Devon, where’s Devon at 30. I’m sorry you’re hiding on the camera. You share what you’ve been doing. Lots of website stuff. Lots of it now, um, if you can’t hear and see, do you have time before you bring up

here? Are Your partner in crime here? Can you share about deliberate pizzas, copious amounts of beer and what changed at all for you? Yeah, so delivering pizzas. I worked at Domino’s pizza for four straight years as a delivery driver, I would work 12 hour shifts, basically driving all over the city of Ann Arbor, Michigan. I was probably gonna stay in that career for my entire life if I hadn’t come across the guy who helped me figure it out. So having mentors in life is a huge thing. And I came across a guy named Steve Kinch, who was actually living five doors down from me my entire childhood. But I discovered what he did for a living when I started finally looking for something else. And so I call him up and I had made a list of all the people I knew because I was trying to find a job.

I was literally living in my mom’s basement with my wife and my one-year-old son. That is not a good place to be in life. And I was about to file bankruptcy actually. So I was right on the verge of that. And I, my dad passed away. And so I decided to go ahead and make a phone call to every single person I knew and try and find a better job. So I’m sitting in the basement, literally making these phone calls. And the first person I called was Steve Kinch. Well, he had been the vice president of sales for the largest home building company in the country, which is toll brothers. And so he was literally the guy that wrote their sales training curriculum. He was a big man. So, um, Steve had quit toll brothers one year before this and I didn’t know this.

He traveled the world for a year. And basically, I called him the day he got back from this trip. And while he was on the trip, he had written a business plan to start a marketing company that would hire and train salespeople in staff model homes for builders all over the country. So I basically, when I talked to him, he’s like, how about you come work for me and I’ll train you to do new home sales. And so I literally was the first person that he hired and I got to work one on one with him for four years. He was the most amazing human being. I just, it honestly, the only person I’ve ever met that’s kind of similar to him is clay. And probably why I was drawn to him when I first met him, because there’s not very many boots.

There was not, not that part of it. It was more like a suit every day. But, but the thing is, is like there’s very many people that

are willing to pour into other people’s lives to try and bring them to where they are in Clay’s. One of the only people I’ve met who’s like that all the time. And so it was really cool. I got to like learn everything from the inside with him, um, at the time. Yeah. So at the time, at the time I was, uh, probably, uh, my deck, first of all, my dad going way back, you’re going to get me emotional talking about this part. But going way back when I was 13 years old, my dad was diagnosed with basically congestive heart failure. He had about 30 heart attacks over a three day period of time. I was 13 years old. My Dad was like my hero. He was the best man at my wedding, um, later in life. And so he was told that he had basically 24 to 48 hours to live.

And I was 13 years old. So I was really crushed by that. And I felt like it was God’s fault because why did God let this happen? To my dad. He was the nicest human being I’ve, you know, I’ve ever been around. And so I basically decided at that point I was going to drink myself into oblivion and do drugs and I started doing cocaine and I started doing LSD. Anything I could get my hands on, I was doing those drugs on a pretty much daily basis from the time I was 13 until I was 24. And so when I was 24, it was March six, 1997. Um, my dad sat me down in our family living room on a Sunday night and he was like, you know, I’ve always talked about like my whole childhood. He used to say to us, if you guys ever want to know the meaning of life, I can explain it to you in a, in a few minutes, maybe an hour.

He said, tonight I’m going to do that. I’m like, the whole meaning of life in one hour. This sounds interesting. So I was like, what the heck? And so I sit down with my dad and he basically takes me through and explains to me like, God has a plan for your life and it’s not just like drinking yourself into oblivion, so, or drug in yourself into oblivion. And so the only thing I really remember from that night is that, um, there’s more than just me walking through this life and experiencing just, um, you know, all kinds of craziness that there’s actually something out there for me that’s bigger than just me. And so that was the first night that I really realized that and I decided, okay, it’s time to try and change my life. And so I essentially, that was the day that I took, I went back to my apartment, I proposed to my wife who was my girlfriend at the time, believe it or not, because I was like, I’m going to need a good woman to get me on track.

So I better keep this one around cause she’s awesome. If you guys have met my wife, you know, she’s amazing. So, um, and I took all of my drugs and flushed them down the toilet. I also was a pack and a half to two packs a day smoker. Um, camels. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. So yeah, jackass recovery. Exactly. So, um, flushed all that stuff and just decided it’s time to turn my life around and get serious about pursuing the plan. So that was March six, 1997 living in basically poverty at that point. So I want to do is open it up for the team to ask any questions at all about buying a new house, selling houses, um, not being an idiot. Anything they want to ask you any questions for? I don’t know if I can help with the not being any, but I’ll try anything.

Like what was the white, once you, that drugs are down the toilet and you’re at the point where you know that you want to change, like what was the first step that you took? I mean like writing a list. I don’t know. Like what was the first step that you took to like start making that happen for you? Good question. Um, the first thing I decided to do is Steve Kenny told me to turn my car into a traveling university. And so he said, you need to start buying audio tapes, um, and uh, books on tape and you need to start listening to them in your vehicle. And he said, because in Michigan, you average commute time is like an hour each way. So he’s like, you got at least two hours every day that you can be learning. And so he said, you need to start listening to stuff that’s going to teach you. And he said, three years from now, if you do that every day in three years, you’re going to have a phd in whatever you want to learn about. And I was like, wow, I never really thought about it that way. So I immediately started buying all that stuff and literally the backseat of my car was filled with audio tape.

If you feel like your business is stuck in any capacity at all, if you feel like you just, I have reached a peak, a pinnacle, some sort of glass ceiling or you just can’t push through, I promise you that we know how to help you grow that business, but we can’t help you if we don’t get a chance to know you. So book your tickets at our next in person workshop. Our next one I, depending upon when you download this, I’m not sure when it would be, but we have one every two months for great people like you. Find out the next date of our upcoming workshop today simply by going to thrive time show.com it’s thrive time show.com and feel free to verify the success of Shaw homes. Just do a Google search for Shaw homes. It’s s h a w homes or visit their [email protected]. My name is Clay Clark and I just want to share with you this win of the week because I know that you have both the capacity and the tenacity to turn your dreams into reality. And now that any further I do free book.