Lake Michigan Home

As new home owners scramble to survive in a struggling economy, finding a decent, well constructed home becomes increasingly critical. One company provides tools for survival amidst major competition and economic crisis.

Most home markets are challenged in today?s struggling economy. One national and international kit Home company has discovered a vital tool designed to help them survive and edge out competition.

All Kit Homes has developed a way to help home owners survive amidst pressures from the economy, natural disasters and major competitors. The company provides a new practical home ownership plan which saves 20% – 40% construction time without delay.

Each unit is constructed in a controlled environment. Each home is assured with a great level of quality control with only 20% moisture by the time it arrives on the construction site. This construction technique also eliminates the cost of on-site theft and vandalism. Bulk purchasing abilities have been developed to reduce costs, and this savings is also passed to the home buyer. Costs are further reduced because there are no wasted materials likewise on conventional job-sites.

“Our homes are much different from other homes. They are basically built the same by any other contractor, but with well constructed, high quality materials in a factory controlled environment,” says David Edwards, President of All Kit Homes. “The method we use has no tolerance for error, and this revision allows simple, but fast erection and reduces the site costs and total cost of their kit.”

Purchasing a total pre-constructed package significantly cuts exaggerated local labor costs, and reduces the time required for completion. This lowers construction loan costs and allows the home to be sold, or moved into more quickly.

Hand built items cannot logically be competitive, cost-wise with assembly line style material. The more time saved the more dollars saved. Time is money. Furthermore, the home which is factory constructed, the less local labor which in turn is cost prohibitive in most areas.

“We are finding more people around the world do not know the full concept of open panel construction. A home kit is faster and more economically safe than prefabricated or modular homes,” says Edwards. “This allows sufficient time to prepare the home site and have the foundation ready when the package arrives.”

Obviously, quality craftsmanship, energy efficient and reduced per square foot cost are major factors. However, today’s consumers demand something more than dull, rectangular living modules. They demand contemporary design, eye appeal, and luxury. All Kit Homes is proud to say that these kit homes, not only meets this demand, but also exceed these requirements.

About All Kit Homes.

All Kit Homes is a national and international distributor/contractor of High Quality, Affordable, Custom Panelized Homes – Shipped World Wide.

All Kit Homes, Inc. (http://www.allkithomes.com)

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Most small businesses are more flexible organizationally than ever before. They have set aside their cultural and organizational differences to predominantly better equip their company with quick decision making, where risk taking is encouraged and failure is merely an education.

A company with conventional free advertising methods usually find it a generally unsatisfying experience. They utilize every part of their imagination and energy to be a guest on radio and television talk shows. They produce and distribute advertising circulars on all the free bulletin boards at coin operated laundries, grocery stores, and beauty or barber shops.

What they eventually find, is that increasing complexity in their company has resulted in inflexibility and slow decision making processes. The more routine free advertising methods have a tendency towards internal conflict and stratification, as well as a leadership that would tend to emphasize capital investment as a solution to all problems.

Consumers have acquired organizational habits that are not well aligned to the needs of a tough economy, therefore, they discover undesirable traits or behaviors found in many organizations. They have become smart consumers in the movement towards centralized control. This characterizes a typical consumer goods business, and will carry with it limited coordination among departments and divisions resulting in a weakened sense of market trends and increased dissatisfaction.

Free Advertising must embrace the initial contact and emphasize that your product or service would be of interest to the listeners or viewers of the program, perhaps even saving them time or money. This also must carry an increased willingness to seek appropriate alliances and partnerships that will provide convergence to the integrated business model required to overcome these mismatches in our current economic culture and outlook.

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You must realize that your product or service cannot be all things to all people. Very few items on the market today have universal appeal. Even when dealing in basic commodities like table salt or aspirin, marketing people have gone to all sorts of extremes to create brand awareness and product differentiation. If your product or service is properly positioned, prospective purchasers or users should immediately recognize its unique benefits or advantages and be better able to assess it in comparison to your competition’s offering. Positioning is how you give your product or service brand identification.

Positioning involves analyzing each market segment as defined by your research activities and developing a distinct position for each segment. Ask yourself how you want to appear to that segment, or what you must do for that segment to ensure that it buys your product or service. This will dictate different media and advertising appeals for each segment. For example, you may sell the same product in a range of packages or sizes, or make cosmetic changes in the product, producing private labels or selecting separate distribution channels to reach the various segments. Beer, for example, is sold on tap and in seven-ounce bottles, twelve-ounce cans and bottles, six-packs, twelve-packs, cases, and quart bottles and kegs of several sizes. The beer is the same, but each package size may appeal to a separate market segment and have to be sold with a totally different appeal and through different retail outlets.

Remember that your marketing position can, and should, change to meet the current conditions of the market for your product. The ability of your company to adjust will be enhanced greatly by an up-to-date knowledge of the marketplace gained through continual monitoring. By having good data about your customers, the segments they fit into and the buying motives of those segments, you can select the position that makes the most sense. While there are many possible marketing positions, most would fit into one of the following categories:

Positioning on specific product features

A very common approach, especially for industrial products. If your product or service has some unique features that have obvious value this may be the way to go.

Positioning on benefits

Strongly related to positioning on product features. Generally, this is more effective because you can communicate to your customers about what your product or service can do for them. The features may be nice, but unless customers can be made to understand why the product will benefit them, you may not get the sale.

Positioning for a specific use

Related to benefit positioning. Consider Campbell’s positioning of soups for cooking. An interesting extension is mood positioning: “Have a Coke and a smile.” This works best when you can teach your customers how to use your product or when you use a promotional medium that allows a demonstration.

Positioning for user category

A few examples: “You’ve Come a Long Way Baby,” “The Pepsi Generation” and “Breakfast of Champions.” Be sure you show your product being used by models with whom your customers can identify.

Positioning against another product or a competing business

A strategy that ranges from implicit to explicit comparison. Implicit comparisons can be quite pointed; for example, Avis never mentions Hertz, but the message is clear. Explicit comparisons can take two major forms. The first form makes a comparison with a direct competitor and is aimed at attracting customers from the compared brand, which is usually the category leader. The second type does not attempt to attract the customers of the compared product, but rather uses the comparison as a reference point. Consider, for example, the positioning of the Volkswagen Dasher, which picks up speed faster than a Mercedes and has a bigger trunk than a Rolls Royce. This usually works to the advantage of the smaller business if you can capitalize on the American tradition of cheering for the underdog. You can gain stature by comparing yourself to a larger competitor just as long as your customers remain convinced that you are trying harder.

Product class disassociation

A less common type of positioning. It is particularly effective when used to introduce a new product that differs from traditional products. Lead-free gasoline and tubeless tires were new product classes positioned against older products. Space-age technology may help you here. People have become accustomed to change and new products and are more willing to

experiment than was true ten years ago. Even so, some people are more adventuresome and trusting than others and more apt to try a revolutionary product. The trick is to find out who are the potential brand switchers or experimenters and find out what it would take to get them to try your product or service. The obvious disadvantage of dealing with those who try new products is that they may move on to another brand just as easily. Brand loyalty is great as long as it is to your brand.

Hybrid bases

Incorporates elements from several types of positioning. Given the variety of possible bases for positioning, small business owners should consider the possibility of a hybrid approach. This is particularly true in smaller towns where there aren’t enough customers in any segment to justify the expense of separate marketing approaches.

As you continue to expand your business in the months and years ahead, use the tips presented here. Prepare a budget and review it frequently. Select your items for advertising to help solve consumer problems and then present your advertising message as a form of planned communication to strengthen your market positioning.

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Market research doesn’t have to be sophisticated and expensive. While money can be spent to collect research data, there are many inexpensive ways to collect this data that are easily accessible to the small business owner.

Several of these methods are:

Employees

This is one of the best sources of information about customer likes and dislikes. Usually employees work more directly with customers and hear complaints that may not make it to the owner. They are also aware of the items customers request that the business doesn’t offer. They can probably also give a pretty good customer profile from their day-to-day contacts.

Customers

Talk to the customers to get a feel for your clientèle, and ask them where improvements can be made. Encouraging and collecting customer comments and suggestions is an effective form of research. By asking the customers to explain how the product could improve to fill their needs, constructive market research is done, as well as instilling customer confidence in the product.

Competition

Monitoring the competition can be a valuable source of information. Their activities may provide important information about customer demand that were overlooked, and they may be capturing part of the market by offering something unique. Likewise, small business owners can capitalize on unique points of their products that the competition does not offer.

Company records and files

Looking at company records and files can be very informative. Look at sales records, complaints, receipts, or any other records that can show you where your customers live or work or how and what they buy. One small business owner found that addresses on cash receipts allowed the pinpointing of customers in his market area. With this kind of information he/she could cross reference his/her customers’ address and the products they purchased. From this information he/she was able to check the effectiveness of their advertising placement. However, realize that this information represents the past. Present or future trends may mean that past information is too obsolete to be effective.

Your customers’ addresses alone can tell you a lot about them. You can pretty closely guess your customers’ life-style by knowing what the neighborhoods they live in are like. Knowing how they live can give you solid hints on what they can be expected to buy.

In addition, check returned items to see if there is a pattern. Check company files to determine which items sell best, and which sell poorly. Use creative methods to collect information. All market research doesn’t have to be done with numbers and surveys. It can be done with peanuts, as one creative discount merchandiser discovered.

During a three-day promotion the merchant gave away free to customers “…all the roasted peanuts you can eat while shopping our store.” By the end of the promotion the merchant had “litter trails” that provided information on the traffic pattern within the store. Trampled peanut hulls were littering the most heavily traveled store aisles and even heaping up in front of displays of merchandise of special interest to customers.

In short, the merchant learned how they acted in the store and what they wanted and observed their behavior. The key to effective marketing research is neither technique nor data – it’s useful information. Customers likes and dislikes are shifting constantly so this information must be timely. It’s much better to get there on time with a little than too late with a lot.

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It’s just not enough to work hard for your money. In order to grow more wealthy than you are now, you must start making your money work harder at your bank.

Start from where you are now and eliminate any kind of service charges. Read over your bank statement to see how much you are being charged, and for what specific services. Talk to other banks and compare what they charge for the same services.

You may find your bank may offer you a better deal. For example, you opened your checking account with $500 flat fee service charge of $5 per month. Now, its a few years later and your balance may have risen so that you now qualify for free checking or debit cards. Your bank will NOT automatically change your plan as long as it can keep collecting your $5 over, and over. One phone call or a visit to your bank could save you $60 a year.

Never let your money accumulate in a noninterest bearing account, such as some checking accounts. Instead, ask your bank for a checking account that pays interest as long as you maintain a minimum balance.

Set up a money market account, in addition to a checking account. These out pay regular savings accounts with an interest rate tied to movement with the prime rate. You can then write a monthly check to your regular checking account to pay for bills.

Once you have chosen the highest interest account, make regular deposits into it. Put your paycheck and any other receipts into this account. Transfer to the lower paying checking account only the amount needed to cover regular expenses. A realistic goal is to hold on for savings to at least 10 percent of all the money deposited to your money market account.

Consistent deposits are the key. For example, let’s say it’s January 1 and you’ve made a decision to start investing next year at this time. You have set your mind to save $1,000 (plus interest) especially for that purpose. If you’re not used to parting with $1,000 in cash all at once, you may have difficulty meeting your regular expenses.

You can reach your goal by December if you put $85 per month ($85 x 12 = $1,020) into the highest interest money market account, compounded monthly. But, you then start thinking about giving up $85 each month. So, you don’t deposit the $85 for the entire 12 months. In December, you get more at ease and put $1,000 into your money market account. Sounds great right?

You have the investment money you promised yourself and you haven’t lost a penny, or have you? December is the twelfth month of your savings year. Due to the way interest is truly computed for example, your $1,000 will earn one month’s worth or 5.5 percent, or $4.58 (1/12 x .055 x $1,000).

Compare this with regular $85 deposits, January through December, earning 5.5 percent in that same money market account. If you desposit $85 per month, you get a total of about $26 in interest. This may not seem like a lot of money, but look at what $26 really is: almost one third of one month’s $85 deposit. Money that you don’t have to earn for your money market account.

Look for other investment alternatives in the accounts department. Checking accounts are fully liquid, however, they are designed to hold only small amounts of money. If you have the minimum required, and you can get along with less liquidity, put a larger sum of money into a six month or one year CD or short term government securities – term accounts. These overlooked vehicles pay rates higher than regular savings or checking accounts and offer almost immediate liquidity.

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