Scalable Management Solutions



Meeting sales and marketing needs for projects in today’s market requires analysis, team collaboration, and innovative solutions that adapt to change, produce results, and are cost effective.

The project’s sales and marketing functions are either in-house, outsourced or a blend of the two solutions. The in-house solution gives the developer total control of marketing and sales, but requires a fixed cost commitment for upper-level management, supporting personnel, and overhead.  Also, the developer may benefit legally by funneling sales through an independent real estate broker, thus placing the Broker between the Developer and the Buyer.  The trend over recent years is to either outsource all sales and marketing management or selectively outsource to compliment and support in-house sales and marketing resources.

The project management team’s bandwidth can be stretched thin at various times throughout the lifespan of the project or the team may lack expertise in some aspect(s) of sales and marketing management.   Contracting with an independent sales and marketing executive is a cost effect option to assist in-house management during periods of peak demand and add expertise where needed.  This added support may be what is necessary to ensure that all sales and marketing elements consistently operate at optimum levels.  For example, if the in-house management team is running multiple projects, they may need support during the time intensive first sales release.  The independent sales and marketing executive could be effectively used to establish the sales team’s product training curriculum and conduct “sales drills” to prepare the sales team to be at peak performance with their very first live sales presentation.  There are a number of high demand periods through the sales and marketing phases of a project when additional executive level expertise is temporarily needed. Contracting the services of an experienced independent sales and marketing executive keeps fixed personnel costs down with the ability to add management on an as needed basis. 

 In addition to expanding sales and marketing management bandwidth, the in-house team may need outside expertise for technical and specialized components of sales and marketing management.  The components may be primary market research, project comparable analysis, data-mining and lead incubation, or developing sales scripts based on consumer behavior and preferences.  To illustrate one application, let us examine data mining and lead incubation.  While sales and marketing managers are likely to be conversant in these disciplines, they may not be expert in the process of mining data and implementing lead incubation systems.  The continual advancement of data collection methods and the application of analytical tools required to help the sales team fully leverage the data into timely and relevant prospect communications requires specialized expertise.  As marketing strategies become more sophisticated there is a growing need for higher levels of expertise in all the components of the sales and marketing process.  Incorporating the services of an independent sales and marketing executive will increase in-house management bandwidth and add expertise where needed.  The independent sales and marketing executive may also be a valuable resource to review project sales performance and provide useful insights and recommendations to the development team.

An independent review of sales and marketing strategies, tactics, budgets, and related management practices can be helpful to ensure that vendor services align with the development team’s goals and objectives as well as identify potential performance gaps or areas for improvement within the overall development team.  Throughout the course of a project the periods of heavy time demands on core team members require that management focus on priority projects and tasks, which may result in delays for other projects and tasks.   The non-bias nature of the independent sales and marketing review will provide a fresh perspective and identify “slippage” and performance gaps.  Properly administered, the reviewer provides positive feedback and collaborates with in-house and vendor personnel to improve performance.  The independent reviewer is only affective when viewed as an asset by all stakeholders.  Incorporating independent review of sales and marketing performance is likely to pay financial dividends through improved productivity and cost management.

In summary, whether the independent sales and marketing executive is used to expand human resource bandwidth, perform specialized management functions, or provide general management oversight, when and how to incorporate these services is determined by the project phase; experience levels and bandwidth of the developer’s project management team; and the scope of services provided by the sales and marketing vendors.  The ever changing marketplace for new residential development often requires innovation and new solutions that adapt to market conditions and the needs of the development team; using the services of an independent sales and marketing executive as needed is solution that fits today’s market conditions.



One Response to “Scalable Management Solutions”

1. Jeanne Holker says:

   April 16, 2009 at 6:19 pm

   I think a lot of people in management think scripts are a good idea. As a sales person I’ve found that scripts often don’t really fit with the way I like to communicate. Also, it seems when sales slow down all the attention is placed on the sales agent and every little thing said or done is evaluated.