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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IBS 2012 – What you may have missed

Monday, February 20, 2012 - 13:16
The bottom of the market is clearly in and most builders know it, especially those that attended the International Builder Show (IBS) in Orlando, February 7-11th.  At IBS 2012, there were scores of great programs on red hot topics like Social Media Strategies, Marketing Must Dos, Lean and Green best practices, and much more. Additionally,...

Have you set customer satisfaction goals for 2012?

Wednesday, December 14, 2011 - 11:56
December is often the time of year that many home building companies finalize their 2012 goals and budgets.   Management meticulously reviews past sales performances, hard costs, personnel budgets, etc., and set both goals and budgets for 2012.   Once each line item is discussed and approved, these bugeteers ask managers to...

The Rear View Mirror - Goodbye 2011!

Thursday, December 8, 2011 - 11:54
When we look into our car’s rearview mirror we see where we have been, as well as the distant horizon; the vanishing point of times past.  In the home building industry’s rear view mirror, I gladly see the depths of home building’s bottom slipping over the horizon.  What makes me think so?  First, many sectors of the economy and...

Black Friday - Where Were The Builders?

Monday, November 28, 2011 - 16:33
The 2011 “Black Friday” sales numbers are in and show a pleasantly surprising 16% gain in year-over-year retail sales!  Some economists, pollsters, and industry “experts” expected consumerism to be flat or even down this year; proving once again that rational surveys do not accurately capture consumer emotions. Here are two Black Friday...

The Need For Speed

Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - 13:06
To home builders, speed is a highly valued commodity.  It is not unusual to hear home builders boast about fast build cycles, lightening fast product development, near real-time custom pricing quotes, etc., right?  Yes, it seems we are laser focused on, and maybe even addicted to speed in developing land, designing plans, and...

Home Building and the Ultra Marathon

Monday, November 7, 2011 - 11:51
The idea of running a 100 mile race ten years ago was as inconceivable and foreign to me as the possibility of a 6 year real estate crash.  As it turned out, last month I got to experience both of these. One benefit of running a 100 mile mountain trail marathon is a lot of thinking time – and I mean a lot.  During this bucket list...

Quick decisions and growing market share: the chicken or the egg?

Tuesday, November 2, 2010 - 15:21
While making sales presentations to three of our four most recent prospective clients, we were hired on the spot – three times!  On the first two occasions, we did not have our start-up paperwork and consulting agreements on hand and ready to go.  We had become conditioned over the past three years to home builders requesting a...

I Hear and I Forget

Friday, October 8, 2010 - 09:50
“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” — ConfuciusIt is that time of year. Customer satisfaction and quality ratings are shot against the sky in 17 markets, once again bringing attention to the voice of the home buying customer. Each year, these ratings, like 4th of July fireworks, illuminate...

How To Out-Behave the Competition

Friday, September 17, 2010 - 09:40
Want an excellent book to read? Try Dov Seidman’s “How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything... in Business (and in Life).”This book wonderfully describes how products and services can easily be copied by competitors. The only “thing” that the competition cannot copy is human behavior — how you do what you do...

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