Woodland, O'Brien & Scott

Charlie Scott

Charlie Scott has more than 25 years of hands-on homebuilding experience, much of this in senior management positions with an award-winning, nationally recognized Midwest builder.  He credits a "Voice of the Customer" firm as instrumental in his homebuilding company's strategic growth and success.  Today, Charlie is an owner of that "Voice of the Customer" firm – Woodland, O’Brien & Scott – and helps North American home builders grow their own customer-centric cultures, pursue operational excellence, and increase referral sales.  Charlie is an internationally known customer satisfaction expert and has presented keynote addresses in the U.S., United Kingdom and India. Charlie also authored the book, “Construction Knowledge 101” to help builder personnel in all functions understand the nature of homebuilding.  He would love to hear you from you at: CharlieS@woodlandobrien.com. 
 
 
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Do you communicate efficiently or effectively?

Saturday, March 2, 2013 - 10:30
Do you remember the last time you received a piece of personal U.S. mail (not counting bills)? According to a recent study, the average American receives a piece of personalized U.S. Mail every six to seven weeks – and this includes birthday, holiday and other family generated cards. Wow, what a metamorphosis in personal communications in the past...

Find your special 007 sales agents

Friday, February 8, 2013 - 14:17
I read thousands of customer surveys every year – THOUSANDS!  This customer insight gives me a unique perspective on many home building topics, like today’s “Finding Your Special Agent 007s For Huge Sales Increases." One of our customer satisfaction surveys' many purposes is to help identify “special builder agents.”  By...

Have you Drunk the Social Media Kool-Aid?

Tuesday, January 29, 2013 - 21:19
When I was part of a growing home building company we learned to be on guard for the newest “technology” coming down the pike that promised to revolutionize our home building business. We called the condition of falling for these fantastic technology claims the “allure for the sexy lady of technology.”  Thirty years later, it is safe to say,...

Do You Really Want More or Less Realtor Generated New Home Sales?

Thursday, January 17, 2013 - 13:05
It is not a secret to regular readers that increasing a home builder’s customer satisfaction increases referral sales.  Many home builders blow away the 15% national average of referral sales and achieve 40-50%, by virtue of meeting the customers’ hierarchy of needs and having in place a respectful referral sales strategy. Invariably home...

Lesson Learned: The Perils of Sales Success aka Luxury Car Alert!

Friday, January 4, 2013 - 23:08
The market bottom is clearly behind us, and this is validated by three very reliable indicators.  First, annualized home starts have more than doubled from the Spring of 2009.  Second, consumer confidence (and therefore builder confidence) continues an upward trend, and for regular readers, you know these are good predictors of...

Lessons Learned from Lance Armstrong

Sunday, December 23, 2012 - 11:35
There is no question that Lance Armstrong has one of the most unique comeback and sporting histories of all time.  He was a little known triathlete, cancer survivor, turned seven time Tour de France winner, and founder of an extremely successful non-profit foundation, before dramatically falling from public grace by virtue of the U.S Anti-...

The Teamwork Fable - 4 Oxen & The Lion

Thursday, November 1, 2012 - 09:40
We all know that teamwork is an important ingredient in building great homes and great relationships with our customers. This importance is substantiated by Woodland, O'Brien & Scott studies showing that a builder's teamwork rating is a good predictor of future referral sales. Given the importance of teamwork, particularly as we head into a...

Customer Satisfaction Bonuses - Right or Wrong?

Monday, October 8, 2012 - 15:20
Performance bonuses have been around the homebuilding industry for a long time.  Salespeople earn commissions and bonuses based upon their sales productivity, and Superintendents earn bonuses for their Quality, Budget and Schedule performance.  For the most part, customer satisfaction bonuses were left out of the equation…until that is…a...

Team - There is no "I," but the "A" is for accountability

Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 16:00
Team sports analogies have long been used in home building for obvious reasons.  They both have the common component of individual performances that roll up into team results.  Home building is the ultimate team endeavor, made up of internal employees and external trade partners numbering into the thousands. Why is teamwork...

New Home Market - Getting Better All The Time!

Tuesday, August 7, 2012 - 13:45
Readers may recall a study I did a few years ago attempting to identify the most reliable predictor of future new home sales activity.  The closest predictor turned out to be the Michigan Consumer Sentiment Study (MCSS).  The trick was that you had to adjust the MCSS data six months FORWARD to match new home sales.  In other words,...

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