Sam Rashkin of Green Builder Media's Housing 2.0 program covers behavior change principles builders and sales teams can use to convey the hidden value of zero energy homes. He leans on visible proof, including infrared images of retrofitted homes, storytelling and staged in-home experiences rather than competing on price.
00:00:02:14 - 00:00:35:01
Mike Collignon: All right. Hello, everyone. Welcome to our fifth virtual seminar in housing 2.0. Today's seminar is going to outline seven tried and true principles for changing behavior. Now these strategies can be applied to optimize customer value for high performance buildings. Now you might think, well, I'm a builder or an architect. This sounds more like sales. Well. Sales are likely a part of your company's efforts, and if not, then maybe you're one of the people attending today who might be considering a career change, which would be appropriate because it is.
00:00:35:01 - 00:00:52:18
Mike Collignon: Explore your career options week. Now my name is Mike Collignon and I'm the housing 2.0 Program Manager. If at any point you have questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to me via the chat box or by email. I'm going to put my email address in the chat box in just a little while. You know who has built a career in housing?
00:00:52:21 - 00:01:16:08
Mike Collignon: Sam. Rashawn. He's formerly the chief architect at Doe's Building Technologies office, but now is focused on creating and teaching the content for the housing 2.0 program. The content is is based largely on Sam's latest book, housing 2.0 A Destruction Survival Guide. Now, the full program was established to help empower you, our building professionals, to design and construct higher performance, healthier, more sustainable homes that are fraction of the cost.
00:01:16:12 - 00:01:34:24
Mike Collignon: Sam is going to lead us through today's seminar, and he's also going to address your questions at the end. Now, before we get started, I want to tell you about our sponsors who provide careers for many people. The first is Schneider Electric, who is driving the digital transformation of modern homes with smart and sustainable energy solutions for ultimate comfort and energy efficiency.
00:01:34:27 - 00:02:03:14
Mike Collignon: They're connected home ecosystem of smart energy management solutions provides digital control of energy use throughout a home from the grid via their smart electrical panel to their connected wiring devices. Next, we have Genco Solar. They are a leading PV module manufacturer and energy storage system integrator. The company has deployed approximately 100 and 110GW of their Eagle modules in 160 countries globally, including more than 17GW right here in the United States.
00:02:03:16 - 00:02:26:20
Mike Collignon: Eagle storage brings together the best energy storage technology for turnkey hardware and energy storage services. And finally, Panasonic Healthy Indoor Living Solutions is helping builders across the country differentiate themselves with powerful, code compliant and cost effective indoor air quality solutions that provide a safe environment for home buyers. Now, during the course of today's presentation, you can submit questions for Sam.
00:02:26:21 - 00:02:41:21
Mike Collignon: Simply use that questions box that you see inside the go to Webinar Control panel. I'm going to review those questions and pose those to Sam after his presentation. All right. Now to hear from a guy who has spent his career in the home building industry, here is Sam Raskin.
00:02:41:23 - 00:03:07:14
Sam Rashkin: Hey welcome everyone. And today's one of my favorite topics, translating the hidden value of zero. And the reason such a favorite topic is because after visiting tens of thousands of homes under construction in high performance programs, one of the biggest opportunities in the industry is to do much better at translating values. So I hope today's session is useful.
00:03:07:17 - 00:03:35:25
Sam Rashkin: What we're going to do and cover today is first the context again of housing 2.0. Why, what and how? Then we'll go into what is the hidden value of zero as a baseline for opportunity. And then how do we translate that value. And as always we wrap up with discussion. So that's the layout for today. And before we begin I like to just always lead with the why translating value really matters.
00:03:35:27 - 00:04:13:27
Sam Rashkin: And this is kind of old ancient sales. Axiom says it all once values and destroyed, price becomes much less important and it's critical to always get value. Understood. So this is such an important session. I'm glad you're here. And let's dive into the why, what and how context from housing 2.0. And it all begins with this basic analysis of where people spend time one by one, the national labs and found when people report back where how many hours I spend every day at home, work, dining, other indoor locations, vehicle and outdoors.
00:04:14:04 - 00:04:40:29
Sam Rashkin: This is the big, big moment for everybody. We're almost 70% of our lives inside our homes. Home is where life happens and this is pretty our Covid way. Pre-COVID, I suspect after Covid we're closer to 75%. And that leads to the law for housing 2.0. The for purpose. The reason we exist is for homes where life happens better.
00:04:40:29 - 00:05:18:22
Sam Rashkin: And what we do is create a framework, consistent, bankable process for delivering homes where life happens better. Now, most of my audiences are zero high performance housing community professionals, and they're very focused on performance. And that's great. But there's no way this stool will stand for just performance. The housing user experience optimization requires, in fact, five complete strategies for homes that live better, and it's community designed sales quality as well as performance.
00:05:18:22 - 00:05:43:13
Sam Rashkin: And tell that all this is about 160 best practices. And we're in basically betting this for many, many years, hundreds and hundreds of housing professionals. And we're excited that this is a consistent process for getting a better user experience at lower cost. So how do we get it at lower cost? And this is basically the process that gets us to this consistent outcome.
00:05:43:14 - 00:06:05:08
Sam Rashkin: We have the first cost business model and the housing 2.0 business model. And we look at the cost per home. We may spend a certain amount for user experience optimization, mostly around experts and special features to do that in a first class business model. But in housing 2.0, we look to make a significant investment in the experts and special features.
00:06:05:08 - 00:06:25:02
Sam Rashkin: When we know we have a user experience that's transformative, it can be colored, the lighting can be outdoor living, it can be healthy living. There are a whole array of experiences that are worth investing in. But the secret sauce of this whole program is number two. Normally you have a certain array of costs for material, labor, and marketing.
00:06:25:02 - 00:06:51:16
Sam Rashkin: In a first cost business model, we apply this optimization lens. We look to just optimize simple, lean, no waste quality integrated systems and mass customization for a net cost savings. With all this added value, which winds up to be about 30 to 70% savings plus added value per home. Again, the housing 2.0 reference is where you'll find all this information.
00:06:51:18 - 00:07:16:19
Sam Rashkin: Detailed tabulations. This is the backbone to the content that we're going to cover today, as it has been in the past webinars this year. So let's start with a hidden value of zero, which is a summary of a lot of what we're covering hundreds of pages in housing two point out, and the basic strategy for how we get to zero for lower costs is optimizing three key elements.
00:07:16:19 - 00:07:44:18
Sam Rashkin: One is design. The second is performance, and the third is productivity. And it's not enough just to do performance. So starting with design our strategy and housing 2.0 is to recognize our core purpose with homes is space. And space matters outside inside the details and what we do, what what we optimize. The goals are to optimize location strategies fit to site.
00:07:44:23 - 00:08:07:11
Sam Rashkin: We optimize nature. We do that with natural comfort. We optimize space. We do that with right sizing. We optimize form with simple and finally optimize function with integrated systems. And what happens when you do all these and apply these best practices is we wind up with all this value, all this editing, hidden value. We optimize affordable with free natural comfort.
00:08:07:16 - 00:08:42:01
Sam Rashkin: Leveraging the sun and the wind. We optimize the space itself. We right size it for how you live. It's simple which is delivers amazing cost savings and elegant esthetics. We are fit to site to enhance durability, and we have all these integrated systems to optimize both esthetics and cost. And eventually we're moving the industry to mass customization because it's so much lower cost and it delivers like 90 plus percent of what we expect in terms of customized solutions on wellness.
00:08:42:02 - 00:09:13:24
Sam Rashkin: We have way more than just indoor air quality. With good design. We have outdoor living, daylight and enhanced views. We have this really extraordinary comfort that's leveraging the sun, the wind and fresh air, free living and social connection. And if you look at the blue zones, it's amazing how significant social connection is to these regions of the world where you have this unusual, long living, past 100 years, average age, and how much of that is tied to social connection?
00:09:13:24 - 00:09:40:17
Sam Rashkin: And finally, we optimize future value with expert landscaping and enhanced resilience. And what we know we do all this is zero is a wrong answer. And so we go and look at a lot of tabulations. I've done basic back of envelope kind of number crunching. You get some amazing numbers and I don't want to take all the time today to run through all these numbers, but it's just stunning when you look at how much they all add up to.
00:09:40:22 - 00:10:00:19
Sam Rashkin: But let me give you one example. For instance, free natural comfort. We can get like 30% or more of the heating and cooling every year just from the sun and wind, and that's worth about $30,000 over 30 years. So I've just of how to get such big numbers. And the other one I'll mention maybe is right size for how you live.
00:10:00:21 - 00:10:24:23
Sam Rashkin: We can say 4 or 500ft² per home on an average 2200 square foot, 20 200 square foot home. And that's about $80,000 of cost savings. So you kind of see where these numbers come from. But more significantly, they add up to about 100 to $200,000 of added value. That's hidden and often neglected or ignored in the sales. Translate well in the sales process.
00:10:24:24 - 00:10:50:06
Sam Rashkin: We don't translate this value then. Then we look at performance as a next step of getting to zero for lower cost. And what we do there is we recognize protection matters protection from high bills, from comfort, comfort issues, from lack of convenience, from health issues, lack of durability, from safety and water constraints. And what we do we optimize enclosure with building science.
00:10:50:08 - 00:11:21:10
Sam Rashkin: We optimize with efficient and smart components and equipment. We optimize health with a comprehensive indoor air quality strategy. We optimize water with water efficient, we optimize resilience with disaster, and we optimize zero by getting on the path to zero. And so all these components provide tremendous value. Again, affordability, wellness and future. And again, I don't want to spend too much of the time we have today diving into this.
00:11:21:11 - 00:12:05:03
Sam Rashkin: These we cover in other sessions in the book. But again when you when you sign zero value to the utility savings, that's the wrong number or maintenance or health expenses, sick days, the numbers are really significant. Take health expenses just as an example, the average out of pocket expenses for household was about $8,300. If all this effort in high performance indoor air plus certification homes eliminates combustion products from outer hides, VOCs, pests and dust mites, and and toxic mold and and array of other contaminants that go in our homes.
00:12:05:10 - 00:12:37:25
Sam Rashkin: That's not worth nothing, but it saves you 10% of the $8,300. That's $830 a year. That's more met savings over 30 years. And the utility bill savings. And we don't even quantify this and explain this value in the sales process. Net 150 to $250,000 of value from wellness, affordability and future value. And then when it comes to the last one, productivity, the basic why is affordability is critical.
00:12:37:25 - 00:13:04:22
Sam Rashkin: And if we're not maximizing productivity, we have increased cycle time, increased defects, increased waste, and we don't integrate self-learning. And so what we do to optimize productivity is first we optimize construction documents and we go to digital solutions. We want a virtual twin of every building we built. So digitization is a critical strategy. Then we want to optimize to no defects.
00:13:04:23 - 00:13:32:06
Sam Rashkin: And quality assurance gets you there. We want to move to zero waste lean get you there. And we want to optimize production across 5 to $800 a day. From significant studies about the industry to, for every day, extra cost to build a home. So we want to move to systems built solution that tremendously reduce time, as well as defects as well as waste and reduce documentation.
00:13:32:06 - 00:13:55:10
Sam Rashkin: So all these things happen with systems built. So when we look at the hidden value from being more productive, reduced bidding costs, you do cycle time, rework, quarantine waste, wellness, security, strength and quality. And then you have all this documented excellence and superior warranties. Zero again is a wrong number. And again what I tagged late numbers and look at them.
00:13:55:12 - 00:14:25:06
Sam Rashkin: We're somewhere in the $800,000 value for optimizing productivity. All three design, performance, productivity. We're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars of value. Where is this effectively translated in the sales process. So the tools we'll talk about today are effective for everything you're doing in their homes. But I particularly like to address getting to zero because these value components are invisible.
00:14:25:07 - 00:14:53:22
Sam Rashkin: And we need to be more effective at translating them. So the next module is how do we do this. How do we translate the hidden value of zero. And so the goals basically are to do two things. Recognizing that the home is the ultimate consumer product. Nothing comes close to in terms of use 70% of our lives size, cost, emotion, risk and complex transaction processes.
00:14:53:25 - 00:15:24:22
Sam Rashkin: You've got to be virtually able to inspire customers about your product and assure them that you're the company that can deliver competency and that they can trust. These are absolute goals for everything we're doing, and we translate value. So there are seven behavior change strategies that my decades of observing sales and marketing in the industry reveal. Our drastically underutilized one is to inspire by leading with why?
00:15:24:25 - 00:15:52:07
Sam Rashkin: One is to optimize emotion with power words. One is to optimize clarity with contrast. The fourth is to optimize confidence and trust, then optimize understanding with questions, optimize retention with experiences, and finally optimize relevance and personal with process. So this is what we're going to cover with the most of our time today. And then we'll wrap up with some discussion.
00:15:52:07 - 00:16:14:22
Sam Rashkin: So leading with optimizing why Simon Sinek is famous for his Ted talk and research and work on this whole concept of how every business needs to lead with this. Why with the why? He's big visual for this is the Golden circle where Wharton how are interesting. But the target is always the why people don't buy what you do.
00:16:14:29 - 00:16:41:07
Sam Rashkin: They buy why you do it. So we. This is a soul searching exercise to really figure out why you exist. This is not easy process. Every company has to do this, but once you have it, you have basically the foundation for your marketing and messaging architecture. The how are just the processes you use to fulfill the belief, and what are just the products and services that fulfill the core belief.
00:16:41:10 - 00:17:20:11
Sam Rashkin: The why is the foundation for getting people inspired and assured that you're the builder to work with. So the numbers themselves are incredibly compelling about the business case for for leaders and why one study which classify them under this concept, firms of endearment that lead with the why found that over ten years, that financial return to investors was over 1,000%, which was three excavator than the here to the up to this time the pinnacle of great companies was the good the great one by James Collins.
00:17:20:11 - 00:17:51:01
Sam Rashkin: Three times more return than them and eight times more return than the S&P 500 companies. So the business case for companies that are just front and center with a compelling why are very compelling. So it's going to optimize your why. The key things to know what criteria really should drive your message. And I've come up with for almost everything I do in my presentation is heavily cited with references and sources.
00:17:51:01 - 00:18:19:00
Sam Rashkin: This one I I've had to cobbled together from just a lot of personal valuation of messaging itself. So I'll just confess this is the this is the same set of criteria. But the first is simple because you have to optimize understanding. People don't understand what you're selling or service you're providing. You've got nowhere to go. Then it has to be short because you have to optimize recall.
00:18:19:00 - 00:18:50:24
Sam Rashkin: And I recommend a maximum seven words for your Y message. Then you have to be emotional optimize inspiration. And the last one is really significant. You have to be universal. You can choose almost any words and concepts you want, and it's really critical that you don't exclude interest. You don't exclude the buyers out there from being interested in your product just because they're offended by a certain term.
00:18:50:24 - 00:19:17:25
Sam Rashkin: So you want to be as universal as possible to optimize resonance. I'll give you an example. A lot of us like to really promote climate solutions, climate homes, client programs, climate change. But when you do that, it's the opposite of universal. You're going to automatically offend half the universe of home buyers out there that believe climate may be a hoax or not critical, or there's nothing you can do about it.
00:19:17:26 - 00:19:49:00
Sam Rashkin: You're in a position of having to defend something you don't need to, because basically what you're doing is you're building homes that optimize wellness for everybody, wellness for the homeowners, wellness for the communities. One is for the planet. And where I can be against climate, I cannot be against wellness. It's a universal concept. I will stay away from a lot of politics that's going on right now, but it's really interesting to watch language used by politicians who know how to use words that are universal versus words that are not.
00:19:49:02 - 00:20:12:00
Sam Rashkin: So let's jump into some examples of why. The first one is seven words to inspire and Nurture the Human Spirit. This is from Starbucks, so it just speaks to some much more than just buying coffee every morning. It's about just just getting your day into a great space from the very beginning and right often say you should stop there.
00:20:12:02 - 00:20:47:15
Sam Rashkin: They have a tag that I think is works for me because it's almost poetic. One person, one cup, one neighborhood at a time. So it's amazing how they translate the value of a great cup of coffee into something so much more. Then we have Tesla. A lot of issues about possible confidence or not confidence in the leadership of the company, but in terms of what they did to virtually disrupt the transportation industry that had been locked into the internal combustion engine in a way that no one else could, is amazing.
00:20:47:17 - 00:21:14:09
Sam Rashkin: And part of it was having such a compelling focus. Why? To accelerate the advent of sustainable transport so effective, so clear. It's it's it's simple. It's emotional. So it's great when companies nail it. And maybe one of the most amazing companies as an example is Apple because they have more money in the bank, in the US Treasury. And they're wise.
00:21:14:09 - 00:21:42:12
Sam Rashkin: Only two words think different has nothing to do with technology or computers. Or it was just stunning that their business model was they were going to go out of the box to innovate for a better experience. Everything that has to do with technology and it almost following to the company starts with these two words think different. And there's even a company with one word that is amazingly effective.
00:21:42:18 - 00:22:18:03
Sam Rashkin: Disney's why is one word magic. Everything they have to do in the business or whether it's theme parks, movies, entertainment, cruises, everything that they're about is creating magic for families. And it's so simple. It's universal, it's emotional, it's short. You know, all these elements create incredibly effective lives. So you folks have been attending my workshops to know that I have my five board wife homes where life happens better.
00:22:18:05 - 00:22:44:27
Sam Rashkin: That's that's what drives me every day. I love housing, I also love the planning. So I happen to love housing. That's movement to zero energy. But I know that zero also deliver a far superior living experience. So everything falls for me effectively under the umbrella. Homes, your life happens better. And in contrast, I'll go through websites, I'll go through airports.
00:22:44:27 - 00:23:14:19
Sam Rashkin: Wherever I'm doing, I'll see builder messages. I'll see why. Missing in action in just the confound of how can that possibly be that this is all this builder has to say is I'm walking through Tampa Airport number one builder for 40 years or no message except start your search on the website Tall Brothers. And so again, it's just a lost opportunity not to inspire and still confidence and do all those things at the very beginning.
00:23:14:24 - 00:23:39:11
Sam Rashkin: So in contrast, the builder came to one of my very first workshops for retooling rather than housing 2.0. So going back to version one of my program was new, and I loved within months after the CEO came to the workshop left, he changed the name of the company to Thrive Home Builders. New town means nothing. Thrive is simple.
00:23:39:13 - 00:24:06:09
Sam Rashkin: It's universal. It's emotional. It's about recognizing. Home can be so much more. It's amazing how easy it is. And once you have again your your why, everything then just fills off it, right? Because you're you now know your core. Your home should help you thrive. Ours does. Your home should help pay your energy bill. Hours does. Your home should make you healthier.
00:24:06:16 - 00:24:30:19
Sam Rashkin: Ours does. Your home should be built by your neighbors. Ours. Are it just so elegant? How when you're so you have so much clarity about why you do what you do, the rest of your marketing message just falls right in place. Now moving on to the next behavior. Change strategies, power words and have to optimize it. Words really matter.
00:24:30:20 - 00:25:00:04
Sam Rashkin: Almost everything we do in life for making number of studies and papers. And I love this quote from Kipling. Words, of course, are the most powerful drug used by mankind. So writers of all people recognize how important words really are. And I'm going to just suggest another element about words that a great bargain. Words are free. The power words don't cost any more than the ineffective words.
00:25:00:04 - 00:25:29:05
Sam Rashkin: So use the powerful one once it costs you know more. Let me give you some definition for what a power word is. Power words of those that trigger a psychological or emotional response. Let's look at examples where they virtually have been transformative when they've been applied. The American seafood eating public. Why nothing to do with Patagonian toothfish? Seafood merchant from the States went down to South America.
00:25:29:06 - 00:25:54:01
Sam Rashkin: Found this great fish with flavor, texture, taste. I mean it was just an amazing seafood. Brought it back and it brought it on the shelves. So this is this was, I think in the 1980s. So they cobbled together some ideas with some marketing people, and they did one simple thing to change the name of the fish, one word change to Chilean sea bass.
00:25:54:01 - 00:26:21:26
Sam Rashkin: And the fish became so desirable and so sought after that the confession in public almost drove this species of fish into extinction. Thank goodness it's been recovering lately, but that is just the power of one word change. And words are emotional. It's so compelling when you get them right. Another great example of the power of words is firms.
00:26:21:26 - 00:27:05:24
Sam Rashkin: It's really difficult to sell firms there. So with that older demographic and certain bodily function and whole bunch of jokes that they're the butt of. So prunes are really hard to say. And plumes were declining and consumption and sales. So the California fruit rose got together. They've got some high, high priced marketing consultants. And they came up with a successful word change to dry plums and to be even hipper, they went to California dried plums and the sales of friends would up like 20% within the first six months of the name change, and now is the third largest consumer dried fruit marketplace.
00:27:05:24 - 00:27:35:09
Sam Rashkin: So stunning impacts when you use the right words. One more example not in the housing space is it's really difficult to rally public opinion against the estate tax. One political party is really trying to reduce this tax. Why is it now when you have a big, big estate, the average average citizen goes, why should you be paying taxes with a wealthy estate?
00:27:35:10 - 00:28:01:01
Sam Rashkin: So the political forces got together and it came up with a single word change, many of you know the death sentence. And when they did this, public opinion started to flip its whole thinking about this tax to Washington paints all these taxes just because you die. And so the tax is appealed. The funny history of this one, though, was it was reinstated when I realized I had virtually no impact as it was written.
00:28:01:03 - 00:28:26:11
Sam Rashkin: It it had so little influence on on most people. But it changes. Only possible the repeal of the tax was possible because of the Lord change. So moving into the housing space and the and and and the more efficient housing space, I will go crazy every time I see people use the term energy audit. It's impossible to sell energy audit.
00:28:26:12 - 00:28:51:24
Sam Rashkin: The survey instance survey get in front of audiences is raise your hand if any of you would like an audit. And of course, not a single hand goes up. It's a term that is the polar opposite of the power word. You have all the words available to you to choose, and you choose a concept, a name that no one thinks any single positive thought about being audited.
00:28:51:29 - 00:29:15:13
Sam Rashkin: And words are free. You can choose the powerful one. So we all value checkups for our cars, for health checkups, because we know our bodies, our cars and valuable assets, and it's so important to make sure they're running right. So this is a freebie. People value checkups. Just say the energy checkup. This isn't very hard. We have to be better at translating value.
00:29:15:14 - 00:29:42:06
Sam Rashkin: Now in terms of a high, highly important indoor air quality feature. We try to sell ventilation systems. And there's no one out there in public homebuyer space that's not a zealot for or indoor air quality. That's thinking ventilation. But everyone knows when a house feels stuffy, what they want is fresh air. So just it's a freebie. We can name it a fresh air system.
00:29:42:08 - 00:30:05:05
Sam Rashkin: Now in in technical settings, we can still call it ventilation. But in any public facing communication, this is so much more powerful than ventilation. You kind of get what I'm going. I'll do one more. I work a lot with a structural insulated panel industry, and I've always been less than happy with this term for such a high value product.
00:30:05:08 - 00:30:34:06
Sam Rashkin: You know, structural panels of so many incredible advantages and so much added value. So I would just change the name to Advanced Protection Construction. This is just so far advanced in terms of every part of protection can build from from resilience and impacts and fires and from windstorms and so much more protection for comfort and low bills. This this is just the ultimate advanced technology.
00:30:34:08 - 00:30:54:29
Sam Rashkin: Just calling it by a how or what it is. It's a structural insulated panel net. Why? There's a reason we use these panels, and this is a start in the direction to something that's more powerful. So that wrap this up is the idea is when moving from technical jargon, which often is the source of the names, the the geeks are developing new innovation.
00:30:55:00 - 00:31:19:20
Sam Rashkin: Come up with the names to a language of value, a language that extracts all the value right up front and make sure we're translating okay. The next concept is contrast. We want to definitely optimize contrast. The reasons for clarity. In fact, clarity depends on contrast. We understand something so much better. We see it side by side with something else.
00:31:19:21 - 00:31:46:23
Sam Rashkin: We'll just see something in isolation. The value is really hard to understand. I can say a home is healthier. I don't know what it means, but when I can say it has twice the health Protection of Energy Star home with this indoor Air Plus label, now I'm contrasting the value. In a way it's getting twice the protection. So that's the basic concept.
00:31:46:23 - 00:32:21:05
Sam Rashkin: And we can really put this into hyperdrive is when you leverage loss aversion is so much more powerful than how much you save. And so it's really important to always think about how much you lose. You must have the protection if you go just energy star versus indoor plus. But that's the power message. So let's look at again examples where too often we see the kind of lack of leveraging or such an important behavior change strategy clarity missing in action, nothing more, nothing.
00:32:21:06 - 00:32:46:23
Sam Rashkin: No better example than the NFC National Fenestration Rating Council window label. The label goes to the window. It's not for the architect, it's not for the engineer and the labels on the window. The only person is going to see it, probably the home buyer, and they go by to see their home after or during construction. And this label is Greek to anyone who's just not completely educated at a higher level than the average homeowner.
00:32:46:24 - 00:33:08:21
Sam Rashkin: So we have like a mix of four different with five different metrics. We have terms that no one understands. And so what I see the window on the left and the right, I have no idea the real contrast and clarity of the difference between those two windows. The one, the left is an energy start dual glazed window. The one on the right is a triple glazed window that we're in.
00:33:08:21 - 00:33:30:16
Sam Rashkin: An initiative where we really want to promote, particularly in cold climates, moving to triple glazed windows. This would have no impact and contrast to just you'll explain what's going on. And one on the left is a ten year window. Within ten years it will be obsolete as a choice called climate. The window on the right will meet and exceed future expectations.
00:33:30:16 - 00:34:05:09
Sam Rashkin: It's a 50 year window, one of the most important features of any new home for windows 10 or 50 year choice. Now that creates a whole different decision making process for us to pay by the homeowner. Now they have clarity about what the difference is versus this. It's stunning. Just we don't use these type of approaches. Now, this may be too out there for the window industry, but there's got to be something better than this.
00:34:05:11 - 00:34:30:08
Sam Rashkin: By the way, this is called the curse of knowledge. When you're so deep in the weeds that you only know how to explain something at such a high level that others don't understand, versus bypassing the curse of knowledge and thinking like the consumer. Now, one of the groups I work with, Aerosoles, a great company. They make this digital air sealing, automatic, technology driven approach to getting homes airtight.
00:34:30:08 - 00:34:49:18
Sam Rashkin: But this is the label that comes out of the process on the left, and I think it would be so much better. You know, it's a lot of information about what this is really saying. If I'm a homeowner or the builder, just stick it on and it's ignored. But in contrast, we can maybe leverage the fact that the results are right.
00:34:49:20 - 00:35:11:07
Sam Rashkin: Tell us that we had it nine square inch hole when we started, and we got it down to a half inch, just visually show what we did. We got instead of having this big hole in the wall and got it down to a small, all small little tiny, infinitesimal small hole in the wall, and that's really the value of what you do.
00:35:11:09 - 00:35:34:16
Sam Rashkin: You don't need to show the profile and have it in CFM of leakage per square inch. Just showed graphically the sizes and now you're translating value. And when we had the Zero Energy home program, we had a real challenge. We had no marketing budget, no marketing consultants. And we had an 8,000 pound gorilla in the Energy Star home program.
00:35:34:16 - 00:36:01:05
Sam Rashkin: And all the existing homes were like six out of seven homes sold. So, you know, how do we create value for any home? So what we do is simply use contrast. We explained we had five comparison attributes that we showed zero energy. Home was so much better. The one I thought was most effective was health. Now you have twice the protection in health.
00:36:01:08 - 00:36:26:18
Sam Rashkin: Is there any is their energy home in green prepared to the energy star home in blue. And he had 15 times more health protection. And by an existing phone. How much health protection that winning experts believe should be in every new home. Do you want to give up loss aversion? So this is basically the tools we developed and the messages we gave to our our builder partners.
00:36:26:19 - 00:36:55:16
Sam Rashkin: And the important thing is, when you look at the fact that we spend 150 to 300% more for organic food just to keep pesticide out of the food we eat, and we spend three times more for bottle water versus tap water, just to keep some unknown contaminant out of our drinking water. We can even specify all the contaminants that we're providing twice or 15 times more protection from toxic mold.
00:36:55:17 - 00:37:30:04
Sam Rashkin: Volatile organic compounds from the high best mites, dust particles, carbon monoxide, pollen, pests, bugs, spiders. All this we protect from. And here's a great example of the builder who broke the mold and provide tremendous clarity. So like 98% of the builder billboards I see look like this. You know, from the price. This is an old billboard image price of the high 160 from a high for five hundreds right now in a location, and you just drive right behind the zero retention.
00:37:30:09 - 00:38:03:11
Sam Rashkin: In contrast to the homes billboard, my power bills $5, which rules here. The contrast is implied. Everyone knows they're probably paying hundreds of dollars per month. And here's Heather Robbins paying $5. What's going on? That is something you might retain the power of. Just bring home. The most inspiring message that's easy to understand is so critical. And we sell invisible features like health and affordability and comfort and durability.
00:38:03:14 - 00:38:27:20
Sam Rashkin: Moving on to trust sales. So many books are. Sales is all about trust. Trust really matters. We can cite any number of books just dedicated this one topic. That trust is building trust. And it really matters for housing because like I said before, it's the ultimate consumer product. Nothing comes close and use 70% of our lifetimes. Size 2000ft².
00:38:27:21 - 00:38:59:16
Sam Rashkin: Nothing comes close. Cost half a million, $700,000. Nothing close a lifetime, maybe 100 years. Nothing close a motion risk transaction. This is is any product demands trust. It's housing. And friend of mine, a builder decided to get his PhD at Clemson and did some research and it was stunning. The lack of trust reality we have in housing, which I always knew there's no way home buyer contrasted builder.
00:38:59:16 - 00:39:20:13
Sam Rashkin: We only buy homes maybe three times a lifetime. And really, since we buy 8 or 9 times more used homes and new homes and exposure we have to new home builders is so small that we can't have threats. We don't know how they build, what they build, what's behind the walls. We don't know the technology choices they made.
00:39:20:16 - 00:39:47:19
Sam Rashkin: We don't know so much about what we're getting ourselves into. So I'm finding here is worth noting that none of the 162 home buying respondents indicated the extremely agreed home building companies are dependable or trustworthy. So we have our work cut out for us, but it's it's something we can do easily with best practices. And the three that I recommend are independent certifications, association with leading brands and testimonials.
00:39:47:21 - 00:40:14:28
Sam Rashkin: So we know in the car industry that there's a tremendous lack of trust with car mechanics. And again, you leave your car and you hope they're really doing something and they're using putting the parts they said they put in and and doing quality work. So the importance of a AA independently approved certified repair shop is incredibly important. And so that's why so many mechanics will do this.
00:40:14:29 - 00:40:49:10
Sam Rashkin: Two out of three US drivers distrust auto repair shops. And so in optimizing trust also applies to buying used cars. And so we are ignoring power words when we even use this term use cars. And so I love about the trees getting more savvy with using power words. They now dealerships sell Priyanka's. But were there. Really good at leveraging trust is when they use the concept of certification certified pre-owned cars.
00:40:49:12 - 00:41:11:26
Sam Rashkin: Now you got both power words and trust leverage with certification. And the average premium for a three year old mid-size car is almost 1000. And for luxury car, the average is about 3000. And again, the prices will be going up so much. This is from 2018. Research insured. These prices are much higher. So that's the power of certification.
00:41:11:26 - 00:41:37:27
Sam Rashkin: And all these certifications are available to you. Just the first rating is a certified independent measured your efficiency. Indoor Air Plus means you have 100% of the health protection recommended by health experts in the country. In Energy Star means you're in the top 10% of the most rigorous, high performance farms in the country. So again, I don't talk about energy savings.
00:41:37:27 - 00:41:59:13
Sam Rashkin: I talk about what you're losing. I'm always about loss aversion. So I've never talked about energy savings. But then if you start at zero ready, I got to bump it up to the top 1% in this rigorous, high performance homes built in the country. What a huge benefit to differentiate the builders in the program. And you got to give your builders tools to be most effective messaging.
00:41:59:13 - 00:42:27:13
Sam Rashkin: Why they do that label passive House Institute US and passive House Institute, the European group, they're basically some of the most rigorous. And the certifications, the tougher sell, I believe. But they have a strong mix following that really want the penultimate energy savings. And then the green programs are US green building councils, league lead for home and green building standards from an app.
00:42:27:15 - 00:43:02:29
Sam Rashkin: My problem with green is I don't know what the message means because, you know, it's a bunch. It's a point scheme with a lot of millions of combinations and different investments in improvements. And there's one there's no single what I get bankable feature for green. So I struggle with green. But messages it's green. And then Home Innovation Laboratory has an innovation certified to recognize builders who meet quality of sharing standards.
00:43:02:29 - 00:43:23:26
Sam Rashkin: And less than 1% of builders are certified to these standards. So that's a differentiation for the builders to join that. So all these certifications and then there are others that we could name that I just just just give you a sample. And then the other opportunity you have is you're using a whole array of products in a very powerful brands.
00:43:23:26 - 00:44:01:17
Sam Rashkin: In the computer industry, for instance, it's common Intel inside and Windows 10, 11, 12, whatever it may be. So some of the other industries know how important it is to leverage other ingredient brands that are part and parcel of their products. And housing can do the same thing. There's so many product categories with great brands behind them that are opportunities for associating and leveraging their brand recognition, building materials, comfort systems, indoor air quality products, interior products, electrification products, expert advisor products.
00:44:01:17 - 00:44:32:13
Sam Rashkin: And we're happy to say that, you know, we can't filter our sponsors because we think they bring great brand solutions to integrate with builders. So Panasonic's great for fans and and ventilation and Star Electric's amazing for smart home and other related features in your house in Chico solar obviously for solar. So we love the opportunity you have when you pick really good companies and products to leverage that in your marketing.
00:44:32:18 - 00:45:06:11
Sam Rashkin: And the last part is of trust I talk about as testimonials or just way underutilized. I went to a dedication for Cobblestone Homes, and I was doing a dedication speech for opening a new development. And when when Charlie came up to me afterwards and told me that his family had just been struggling forever with health, respiratory issues with the kids in just months, they threw away the inhaler and the statement that was priceless.
00:45:06:14 - 00:45:28:24
Sam Rashkin: I had to walk them over to Melissa Wall, who was the owner of the company, and said, this has got to be the first thing I see when I walk in the model home. That's right here. It's just, how can you not have that kind of compelling user testimonial as such an important part of the story that you have to tell?
00:45:28:26 - 00:46:00:06
Sam Rashkin: And I see some websites that do this enough that are really effective. This is Cornerstone Builders, fabulous to work with, kind of ask for anything better. And they have over here to have a even a whole list of testimonials just for the length creates confidence. This guy really satisfies your customers. And then moving on to questions. Now questions is huge topic of research and study because everyone knows that understanding really matters.
00:46:00:07 - 00:46:25:07
Sam Rashkin: You've got to listen and understand the buyer. You can't hope to be effective selling if you are not effectively listening. So there have lots of books and and I'll give you some guidelines for questions. Just because, you know, too often questions are done ineffectively and don't really get people to engage. So the first thing you want to do is ask if it's okay to ask questions.
00:46:25:11 - 00:46:50:02
Sam Rashkin: Is it okay if I ask you a few questions so I can really understand your needs for your next? And you have to be really clear what your goal is. What's your purpose? When you start conversing with the buyer, it's to uncover urgent needs. Usually you want to find at least three urgent needs for each buyer, so you can effectively be a solution to that problem.
00:46:50:02 - 00:47:11:13
Sam Rashkin: And unless you peel that onion back, unless you dive deeper and deeper and behind every response, find the root cause reason that they care about that you can't effectively sell to it. So those follow up questions are critical. You want you want to get to the emotions of what buyer value most, the pain points that they're that they're trying to overcome.
00:47:11:13 - 00:47:32:26
Sam Rashkin: And you really want to understand how they live in their home. And then you will know what you have to offer to be their builder. The key thing about questions is got to be easy to answer, but not yes or no. You don't want to have a one word answer. It have to be easy, but not yes, no.
00:47:32:28 - 00:47:57:02
Sam Rashkin: They have to be interesting that the customer wants to converse with you, and it has to encourage them to talk about the problems of desires. Again, not more. So here are some sample questions. Just to give you labor for the kind of engagement that get the ball rolling and really get you deep into what buyers really care about what you like.
00:47:57:03 - 00:48:27:12
Sam Rashkin: What do you like least living in your existing home? Would you like most living your existing home? Why are you shopping for new home? What are the home builders or existing homes are you considering again, what differentiation clients will position your product most effectively? How do you envision living in the next next new home? Do you have any concerns or special needs for any family members really important to get to this one?
00:48:27:14 - 00:48:52:02
Sam Rashkin: Do you have any must have futures? Again, obvious. You want to know what is a showstopper and make sure you have the answers for that. When are you looking to move into your new home against position? The sales and timing? How much is your current annual utility bill? Maybe if you're building zero Energy Home, it's important enough for spending $80 a month or $400 a month.
00:48:52:04 - 00:49:13:24
Sam Rashkin: And finally, another question would be are any special certifications important to you? Is anyone coming through your door who is primed, already interested in one of the certifications that you have? You need to know that. So their whole array of questions you can you can listen any more. But you see all these are great at starting conversations but not yes no.
00:49:13:25 - 00:49:40:01
Sam Rashkin: And they'll get you information you need to sell effectively. I love David Brooks book, a new book I just read last month, How to Know a Person, The Artist's Thing, others deeply and being deeply seen. This applies to life in general, but it's really important in sales and the 8020 rule. It should be top mind with everyone engaging prospective buyer if you want to be listed 80% of the time.
00:49:40:05 - 00:49:52:29
Sam Rashkin: Until I think 20% of the time, because you're gathering information about the buyer and can't be a solution to their problem or provide a.
00:49:53:01 - 00:50:18:27
Sam Rashkin: Solution to their aspirations. So this is critical to be a really great listener. This this book is a great example. Dive into a lot of deeper elements of how this country's polarized right now. But still, so much of what is covered here is is relevant to engaging in the sales process. Okay. Next thing to do is optimize experiences.
00:50:18:27 - 00:50:50:06
Sam Rashkin: And this because emotion matters and it's so. Amazing to see the power of really good experience and a lot of books and studies that cover the whole topic, experience selling and how it's done. And the key thing about experiences I think that it's most effective at addressing is the forget getting curve. People forget information 50% within an hour, 70% within 24 hours, 90% within a week.
00:50:50:10 - 00:51:27:03
Sam Rashkin: I will submit a great experience will be almost ongoing for weeks and weeks and weeks. And so look at it really optimization of experiences as you're forgetting curve solution one. One book I looked at was from Harvard Business Review on the experience economy said commodities are fungible, goods tangible and services intangible. Experiences are memorable. And that's that's the key is when you have a powerful solution, lock it in their heads.
00:51:27:03 - 00:51:56:19
Sam Rashkin: And so I'll give you a great example of the power of experiences with a program in Bristol, England, to to retrofit energy improvements to homes. And they wanted to study the power of infrared imaging. So they went hundreds of homes in the sample and they did half with thermal imaging on normal energy assessment, which I believe they call it an energy audit.
00:51:56:19 - 00:52:29:05
Sam Rashkin: And they did half of the energy assessments with the infrared image. And the results were stunning. Five times more homes that were had energy assessments with the infrared imaging infrared image signed on to the retrofit, improvement in the homes without imaging, and 75% of the homes that had the assessment within an image took action to do the energy improvement.
00:52:29:06 - 00:52:58:00
Sam Rashkin: That's an unheard of uptake rate. Now normally get a few percent with an energy assessment. I feel you're doing great. 75% took action, and 95% of those that saw the infinite images plan to do future work. It was so emotional. It was such a stunning, compelling piece of information to see the visual defects in their home. And this is the most important asset I own.
00:52:58:01 - 00:53:24:10
Sam Rashkin: I've got to get this exponential. What an amazing. How come? All by having the right experience. No words you can convey would ever get those results that this one experience provided. I thought this study is so game changing and I don't know why not more people don't talk about it, just what it did. Show the value of experiences.
00:53:24:10 - 00:53:51:14
Sam Rashkin: In the case of the energy assessment arena, we have virtually no scaling of energy improvement programs. And and here's the solution just right for the taking with so much compelling evidence. Another example of behavior change experiences for me with infrared images was one from old sponsor from my retooling. The US housing industry program was windows, and they did this.
00:53:51:15 - 00:54:19:06
Sam Rashkin: They did home in this brownstone row of houses in Brooklyn, New York. Can you guess which one had the New Zealand Triple Blaze windows installed? Since I'm sure you all stump, it's this house wreck right here. It is remarkable. Look at this house experience versus that house. Where I love about this picture is thank goodness I left the old historic entry doors with the big glass panels.
00:54:19:06 - 00:54:44:04
Sam Rashkin: So you actually know the house is being heated. But for this big red glow over here, I might think this house was beginning. So how much easier is it to go to this neighbor and this neighbor and this neighbor and say, by the way, we just finished putting these incredible new windows in your neighbor's home. Look how well they're performing relative to your home.
00:54:44:08 - 00:55:15:22
Sam Rashkin: Would you also like to have this kind of comfort, energy savings, just incredible protection from the outdoors that your neighbors have? It's a completely different sound like springs selling process to have this experience in town. How powerful is that? So it's amazing. So you know what I've done in two point I was I outlined 38 visual experiences sold by the five key user experiences that could be leveraged in sales process.
00:55:15:22 - 00:55:39:10
Sam Rashkin: And one here I just had is a storage tour can be set up in homes for people that feel the current home doesn't have enough storage. Of course, you know, take everyone on the storage tour, but if one of the three must have features that your buyer tells you is, I gotta have more storage, you have the experience to leverage the must have needed that buyer.
00:55:39:12 - 00:56:03:04
Sam Rashkin: I also mentioned that you'll see a lot of good writing about the effect of storytelling, and storytelling itself can be a very effective experience with a good trained salesperson to integrate in their discussion with the buyers. So visible experiences are easily go. We go from an old tired house of brand new house and visibly we're just blown away.
00:56:03:07 - 00:56:25:01
Sam Rashkin: The emotion, the excitement the builders get. This model homes are just emotional and same thing inside. You'll have an old tired kitchen and we left and we see the new kitchen and it's emotional. We're inspired. We want this. It does everything. The builder wants this part the industry has figured out. So in the visible experiences. But this parts the hard part.
00:56:25:02 - 00:56:57:24
Sam Rashkin: Castle left is zero energy ready home and the house and the rights. Just a standard code. You can't see the difference between the zero energy ready or the energy Star and the code home. It just doesn't show up. And so now we have to create experiences about how the invisible can be made much more resilient. So the National Institute of Standards and Testing this and Gaithersburg, Maryland, as a research project where they put up a zero energy, home, consuming, zero energy.
00:56:57:27 - 00:57:18:14
Sam Rashkin: And so it's getting thousands and thousands of visitors. Go to see the song. Originally, people go to check it out and they promoted it quite a bit. First was built and they had this display of the wall construction in the high performance model we talked about. I rented about way too complex. This kind of construction is to me.
00:57:18:15 - 00:57:50:20
Sam Rashkin: But you know, nonetheless, when you build something like this, at least translate its value. And so just to show it in isolation, I as a, as an average home buyer, get a fraction of the understanding as I would if I showed up. I saw, here's what a typical two door frame, what looks like and just without any knowledge about building science and and thermal power values and you values and and wash control.
00:57:50:23 - 00:58:14:13
Sam Rashkin: I know the wall. Right. So innovation above the wall in the life and what I can do to make it even more effective at a bunch of power labels, just to explain what's going on versus the old 150 year old wall construction. The left. This is the wall as health protection, chemical free paint on the finish, chemical free insulation, chemical free shipping.
00:58:14:13 - 00:58:42:02
Sam Rashkin: And we have high build protection because we have this incredible full thermal blanket cocoon around your home on moisture protection and weather barrier. And we have advanced design for water drainage so you can have no water problems and a maintenance protection at 50 or siding and complete moisture control. This is advanced technology wall system that is light years ahead of the way we've been building for 100 years.
00:58:42:07 - 00:59:00:26
Sam Rashkin: That's what's in our new home. And so you know, this one value translation going on here that's completely missing. If you don't at least give yourself a chance to communicate the benefits. And I told you I was a big fan of SIPs because it eliminates a lot of those moving parts that complex. Well, had I just showed you.
00:59:00:26 - 00:59:27:06
Sam Rashkin: But again, there are thousands and thousands of sticks of lumber and pieces of lumber and little shim pieces and tens of thousands of nails and fasteners in this 150 year old construction that we've been doing since back in 1877, when this picture was taken to our Advanced Protection Construction system. Remember what I call it? And it has all this protection for delay.
00:59:27:12 - 00:59:53:25
Sam Rashkin: You don't have to worry about quality protection, dimensional accuracy and draft protection, and Worcester protection and cost savings. Total cost and condition space, additional space. With all the attic space, we had ultra low bills. You just we need to be more effective transmitting value. And I'm always amazed that more builders don't ask their buyers. When they answer. They build a energy star, zero energy, ready home or pass it on.
00:59:53:26 - 01:00:19:21
Sam Rashkin: Can I please have access to your utility bills? Here's a waiver. Can you then access to get their bills so you can do this kind of contrast. Here's here's the energy bill for a home in or around the block. And here's the bill for poems $343 versus -$13. And that's a story. So this is a big tip. If you're building high performance arms, have a waiver.
01:00:19:21 - 01:00:44:04
Sam Rashkin: It gets you access to the utility bills or at least even ask for the bills a year later when you do a 12 month survey and all this comes together okay. The last step in behavior change we talked about is optimized process, where we use all these tools for behavior change into a kind of a combined solution for being relevant and personal.
01:00:44:04 - 01:01:09:24
Sam Rashkin: And just five steps. So again remember we started by asking probing questions. We we have to uncover at least three needs and aspirations. So we know what we can completely use to leverage a sale. If we address the three critical must have features or concerns, we're on our way to ascend. So the first part we ask the questions.
01:01:09:26 - 01:01:29:27
Sam Rashkin: Then when we have this great, we do this process. And this is about 45 seconds. And I had builder friends of mine who run sales department say, Sam, my my guys, this sounds too much like a sales talk. I say, no, it's 45 seconds and it the problems are not trying to do it and it comes off like a sales pitch.
01:01:29:29 - 01:01:51:02
Sam Rashkin: But the way it goes as you start first by visit feature, that's a must have. Or it needs a critical aspiration that's going to be a feature. You talk about up to three per buyer. And the way you talk about it is with power use. All the tools we just talking about. Then the next thing you want to do is be the expert insight, the advantage generically.
01:01:51:02 - 01:02:17:10
Sam Rashkin: Why is this better overall. So start there and then you zoom in and you go to benefit. What's personal relevant for that buyer. What's in it for me. And often the way you want to do that is by contrast. So you optimize clarity. This is really relevant to that body. And then you have to prove this. So then you want evidence to prove that this benefits bankable.
01:02:17:16 - 01:02:38:25
Sam Rashkin: And the best way to do that is with emotional experiences. And then five is the mini close. You ask for the business when you great. This is the kind of feature that you know you want to have that is being provided. And essentially you can do all this in 45 seconds. So let me give you two examples how that can be done.
01:02:38:28 - 01:03:06:04
Sam Rashkin: Let's start. Let's say the storage example where we identify that the home buyers have the mind living in clutter. So here we go 45 seconds with the feature. Because we've heard many concerns like yours about inadequate storage. We now include a standard whole house verge advantage. This means every home we build comes must have storage features commonly missing in other homes.
01:03:06:05 - 01:03:29:24
Sam Rashkin: Not. You're the expert. Say goodbye to your daily frustration with clutter in your current home. Now your personal relevant. I've told you the only other minds you tie it right to the to the core trigger. That is why they're buying a home in the first place. Evidence. Compare our detailed list of storage features with other builders a highlight.
01:03:29:26 - 01:03:52:15
Sam Rashkin: Many of them walk through the house and then add a highlight. Many of them has worked through the house. What will be the amazing point of contrast is probably no other builder is giving them a list like this, or as comprehensive as this. That's your point of contrast. Look what you're giving up. And by the way, this this is taken right out of housing 2.0.
01:03:52:18 - 01:04:22:29
Sam Rashkin: And if you say I'll highlight any of these as you walk through the homes, have yourself prepared. You know how to do a storage talk, highlight the amazing storage in the closets and wonder what's places for baskets for hanging up clothes for all the all the cleaning supplies, all that's there. Closets for vacuums or mops for all the things that usually there's no place where to put it in places for in your kitchen and you're eating areas for extra tablecloths and for all coppery.
01:04:22:29 - 01:04:45:26
Sam Rashkin: That's extra for all the extra service amenities you have. And you have fought shells as well, so you have yourself ready to give a storage towards nothing that's unique except when you have a buyer cares, you're able to highlight it. Mini close. Is this the comprehensive storage you're looking for? Just got a yes on something that's really critical to them.
01:04:45:28 - 01:05:08:14
Sam Rashkin: That is 45 seconds. That's all it takes. Another example for health okay. We found out that if there are any concerns I have with family members that their kids are struggling with asthma. So you go here, your concerns about your family health, you should know all our homes are healthy living certified. There's that power Word certified right up front.
01:05:08:17 - 01:05:41:12
Sam Rashkin: This means our homes are independently verified to include a higher percent of the health measures recommended for every new home. By leading indoor air quality experts, you'll be the easier. Now you have industry leading protection to manage your family's daily as the struggles. This certification to EPA's rigorous indoor air quality program is protection you can trust. And if you really want to create some, you know that you're also looking at Energy Star certification twice the protection you get with just Energy Star.
01:05:41:14 - 01:05:49:13
Sam Rashkin: So and finally, is this the type of assured health protection you're looking for? That's just a simple.
01:05:49:15 - 01:06:14:00
Sam Rashkin: One minute part of your sales time with a buyer. And you nail the critical Mustang. So this is where all these tools can come together right within the sales process, face to face, to be personal and relevant. All of this doesn't come without continuous training. Your salespeople need to be experts, knowledge, enthusiasm, and earns trust. They need to know the facts.
01:06:14:00 - 01:06:40:28
Sam Rashkin: They need to know experiences and how to be effortless when they use them. And they have to be able to be an expert advisor and explain the features with power, words and simple language for the buyers why they're getting a better user experience. Secondly, they have to be trained in this process of being able to less than a minute effectively translate value that the buyer cares about.
01:06:41:01 - 01:07:10:11
Sam Rashkin: It has to be effortless. It has to just roll. And this only comes with training. And what I'm going to do right now is wrap up by saying it's if there's a call to action, I'd like to end with if you made a dent impression you that these strategies are proven and they are behavior change solutions. So start applying them now.
01:07:10:11 - 01:07:43:02
Sam Rashkin: Inspired by leading with why optimize the notion of power? It's optimize clarity with contrast. Optimize confidence with trust. Optimize understanding with questions, optimize retention of experiences, and optimize being relevant and personal with process. This is incredibly effective tools that I just love to see the high performance industry just get absolute diligent music. And I'll wrap up with one more thing.
01:07:43:05 - 01:08:02:28
Sam Rashkin: The last webinar in this series, coming up on May 2nd, is going to be a little bit of a departure. It's the first time in housing 2.0 we're going to go dive into existing homes. And that session is called getting existing homes to zero is critical how we get there. And I'm going to spend that our talking about the infrastructure.
01:08:02:28 - 01:08:33:09
Sam Rashkin: So no one talks about the 80 million existing substandard homes that badly need upgrades. They just don't work relative to today's expectations. And second, we'll learn how to navigate the many moisture, comfort and health minefields with a delivery solution that scales. So that'll be a good time to kind of bring in the kind of the segment of the industry we don't talk as much about with housing 2.0, and I hope a lot of you take time to join us.
01:08:33:10 - 01:08:42:02
Sam Rashkin: So my once again, we've we've finished another webinar and I'll leave it to you to see if there are any questions we can answer.
01:08:42:04 - 01:09:04:12
Mike Collignon: All right. Thank you sir. And yes, I do have a question. Please submit those to the chat box or the questions box and I will get to those. In fact, I'm going to put a reminder in there now. That's all right I got a handful of questions, Sam. So we're ready to roll on some of these questions. So the first one comes in from Bill.
01:09:04:14 - 01:09:16:21
Mike Collignon: He says the only program that I've seen that gives you a value to add to an appraisal or the underwriting process is the Energy Star program. Do any others?
01:09:16:24 - 01:09:44:28
Sam Rashkin: One the Energy Star process doesn't do that. They'll cite a study that was done that I'm not sure I believe in. I think it was done in North Carolina, and they showed that homes that were sold with Energy Star certification got some insane appreciation, like 30%. So it's a study that's cited. I don't the only tool that's out there for appraisals that that can work actually is a green appraisal.
01:09:44:29 - 01:10:22:14
Sam Rashkin: Addendum comes from the Appraisal Institute. And it's basically a very detailed list of features in buckets of categories like equipment, windows and walls and so forth. And so the key there though, is you have to know to ask the underwriter for a appraiser who is gone through the Green home training program by the presence of two. So you have as a right the ability to ask for a green the net certified.
01:10:22:14 - 01:10:47:22
Sam Rashkin: But they pass a green home appraisal training. And then that appraiser should be trained to know how to fill out the green appraisal addendum. And what they do is they also forced might note those measures to cite a value next to each one. So that's that's available to every home that has high performance improvements. And it just as you're ready.
01:10:47:23 - 01:11:16:09
Sam Rashkin: Even homes that aren't certified may have better windows. And they have a solar system. So it's a green appraisal addendum. That is the only tool right now is not a perfect tool. It can be hard finding appraisers that are fully adept and leveraging all of its value not to use upon there. But but there it is is that is the prime resource for appraisals.
01:11:16:10 - 01:11:41:20
Sam Rashkin: I don't think that the energy stores cited study is going to do much appraisals. Can't use that to to inform their appraisals unless I'm missing something. That Energy Star is added that I don't know about so that. But I know everyone right now when it comes to presence, that's that's a resource they use.
01:11:41:23 - 01:12:04:05
Mike Collignon: And my hope is that there is in your respective areas that have gone through that training. I know, I know, it's about ten years for me. When we were thinking about building a home and we went through the process and we I knew that I knew to ask that question that Sam just talked about. And I got a blank stare from the bank.
01:12:04:08 - 01:12:09:14
Mike Collignon: I was like, I don't know what you're talking about. And none of the list at it.
01:12:09:16 - 01:12:11:11
Sam Rashkin: Doesn't work everywhere.
01:12:11:14 - 01:12:31:08
Mike Collignon: Right, right. All right. So I'll go to a question from Zoran, and then we've got other questions to. So he wanted to know you mentioned aerosol earlier. Is it common for average builders to get one and a half air changes per hour?
01:12:31:14 - 01:13:01:06
Sam Rashkin: No. I think the average for most homes is closer to about three. And the probably the zone is ready. Homes might be under that. Another closer pushing towards two. But I think most of the codes I think five ACH 50 is meeting codes and the and the high performance programs like you're ready to start pushing them to three sometimes one and a half with zero ready.
01:13:01:07 - 01:13:07:23
Sam Rashkin: But I think there's still ways builders can be a little bit.
01:13:07:25 - 01:13:40:05
Sam Rashkin: They can trade off air leakage for something else that they need to be a little bit more leaky. But no, I still think we need, as I said, I think in two webinars ago, get everyone to one and a half ACH 50 because the ACH 15 number again is based predominantly on need to control thermal losses. But the 11.5 is 615 makes sense even when thermal losses aren't that great.
01:13:40:06 - 01:14:10:26
Sam Rashkin: To also mitigate humidity flow into the home pollen dust pest from getting in the home, it adds to resilience in the case of wildfires and don't let smoke into the home. There's so many reasons why the value of 1.58 50 so great and it's so readily achievable. If we have a little more attention to the detail of air sealing, or we use advanced systems like aero Barrier to do the to the job.
01:14:10:27 - 01:14:22:23
Sam Rashkin: But this is where everyone in the industry should be moving to 1.5 in each age 50. And we're not. I don't think we're getting that with Energy Star yet.
01:14:22:26 - 01:14:32:19
Mike Collignon: Is he had a question as far as certifications go. Wondering about your thoughts on living building challenge.
01:14:32:21 - 01:15:08:14
Sam Rashkin: So my thought and certifications is same thought I have about getting technology to market. You got to minimize friction, got to minimize cost. And what I love about the federal programs, they all build on each other. Energy star indirect plus zero energy home I say, what do you mean? They build on each other is if you've done one, you have a platform with a small additional amount to do the second indoor a plus if you do energy storage in Europe, plus you have a small incremental not to do zero energy ready.
01:15:08:15 - 01:15:37:25
Sam Rashkin: And you always use the same verification process where you come in and have a first rater inspect and verify to those program guidelines. So the cost never got much to go from one to the other to the next. And and again, it's it's a system just builds on each other and therefore it's elegant and simple. If I do pass a palace or I do living building challenge, it is a whole array of additional friction points and cost plants.
01:15:37:27 - 01:16:05:01
Sam Rashkin: Here at the first register of the home, you have to have, I think, some plan reviews first, and you have to have a whole different verification than the horse rider who's certified under the passive or Living Breathing Challenge program, and then you're doing something that's completely not structured as building an energy star as much, and interior plus and zero ready as as federal programs.
01:16:05:02 - 01:16:28:18
Sam Rashkin: Now, passive House does require a zero home as a prerequisite, but the rest of the program, that structure is an incremental add on to the zero ready home. It's a very complicated, holistic new set of specifications. That means you have to almost do everything twice. So it winds up with a lot of redundancy. We need the verification for the federal program per requisite.
01:16:28:18 - 01:17:00:29
Sam Rashkin: Then you have to have the passive house verifier do the rest of the verification. So my feeling not to criticize those programs often this is a source of revenue for them and how they believe they sustain the level of quality control they believe they need. So what I say is that they're for people who value the penultimate living building challenge or passive house levels, but you're paying a lot more extra than you do to incrementally go from Energy star to air plus to zero.
01:17:00:29 - 01:17:16:20
Sam Rashkin: Ready. And so they're great programs, a lot of value, but it's so much more cost and so much more process to achieve them than you do incrementally for the federal programs to help. It doesn't offend anybody.
01:17:16:22 - 01:17:19:08
Sam Rashkin: It's just.
01:17:19:10 - 01:17:28:09
Mike Collignon: Yeah. Zoran followed up and said that one and a half ACH is actually the requirement for net zero energy homes in Canada.
01:17:28:12 - 01:17:53:13
Sam Rashkin: So yes, but it's the same. It's it's a requirement. Or is there any homes in Minnesota or New Hampshire in this country is good for the North. It just winds up at like 75 or 80% of all the new homes built this country are in the bottom half or the bottom one third of the country, or the western part where you have no other.
01:17:53:15 - 01:18:06:21
Sam Rashkin: So the ACH 50 levels that you have to build to a much higher than three one and a half because climates is so much more moderate then where the most homes are built.
01:18:06:23 - 01:18:07:12
Mike Collignon: Gotcha.
01:18:07:20 - 01:18:20:10
Sam Rashkin: As I started so the New Hampshire, New York, tiny fraction of Georgia, Florida, Texas, Arizona, California, and we started to close.
01:18:20:12 - 01:18:34:13
Mike Collignon: Yeah, yeah, a lot of building in the Sun Belt. So Zoran had another question about zero energy buildings. Are they actually experiencing utility bills of zero?
01:18:34:15 - 01:18:59:29
Sam Rashkin: Yes, I mean, I've Francis, is there any of you, any home that had zero utility bill and they powered both the car in the house. Now there's often a surcharge you have to pay like an anti just to sell power back to the grid. So when I say zero the energy expense is zero. We still may have other charges by the utility company that make it.
01:19:00:00 - 01:19:20:11
Sam Rashkin: So you still have a utility bill as is only fair. And I say that because most solar systems are using the utility grid as the storage system for their power. In other words, the solar system produces power and it goes on the grid. And you tell a utility, you go figure out what to do with this power and distribute it and get it somewhere where it can be used.
01:19:20:13 - 01:19:43:25
Sam Rashkin: And so if you're going to use the utility grid as you're basically distribution system for your solar power, there should be a surcharge. And so when I say zero energy bill, I mean the you'll offset all your energy use. But it still may be some significant bases you have to pay for for the utility for the hookup.
01:19:43:28 - 01:19:54:02
Mike Collignon: Yeah, I think if it is, you know, it's not zero energy cost buildings. It's zero energy buildings. Like there's a little bit of a difference there because.
01:19:54:04 - 01:19:58:07
Sam Rashkin: Not zero energy utility bill. Zero energy bill.
01:19:58:09 - 01:20:25:07
Mike Collignon: Right? Right. Yeah. Because I mean, our home here was producing more electricity than it was consuming, but I was still getting a monthly grid connection fee. So you know, I yeah. Okay. So Chris had a question. And this is interesting because it goes to the comment that you make often, Sam, about words are free with testimonials on a website or maybe ones that you use an ad such as billboards that you show.
01:20:25:10 - 01:20:44:23
Mike Collignon: How can we make them seem more believable and less fabricated? Even if there are 100% honest reviews from happy clients, as opposed to like, Google reviews that maybe appear to be a little bit more honest.
01:20:44:26 - 01:21:18:12
Sam Rashkin: Well, you can do that by a filter, selecting the testimonials that sound the most believable, but that's assuming that you're collecting enough testimonials that you have the luxury of being able to filter out the less good ones and use the ones that are the most believable and the most effective. That said, I will submit that if it's a true quote, it's hard to it's hard to be suspicious of it.
01:21:18:12 - 01:21:42:26
Sam Rashkin: And if it's an actual video, which a lot of builders are doing, or videotaping their home buyers testimonials and playing those on their websites, those are really compelling. Yeah, maybe they're over the top sometimes in being about the builder in the home, but it's live. It's a home buyer with a beautiful child. And and we're in this beautiful new home and that's it.
01:21:42:26 - 01:21:58:25
Sam Rashkin: They're happy. So with testimonials you know I go yeah it could be a risk. If it is a risk. Collect enough of them that you can filter out the ones that may be two over the top recommendation.
01:21:58:27 - 01:22:03:01
Sam Rashkin: All right. We gotta use.
01:22:03:03 - 01:22:17:25
Mike Collignon: Yeah. Well I mean it is it is challenging if they're so exuberant. But if, if they're genuine and the video kind of shows that then. So.
01:22:17:28 - 01:22:50:05
Sam Rashkin: Can you go from a situation where kids are virtually unable to breathe and going for regular emergency room visits for asthma, and then you go to where all of a sudden they're breathing, they're playing outside and playing sports. You're excited, your life is caged, and you're going to be super. I think people understand the emotion, the rightful emotion, with just fine feeling healthy again.
01:22:50:06 - 01:22:59:03
Sam Rashkin: I think everyone can connect. It's, you know, if they go, if they go over the top. Because I have this one little storage feature. Yeah, that's going to be that.
01:22:59:05 - 01:23:05:28
Mike Collignon: So people aren't excited about closets I've built you.
01:23:06:00 - 01:23:30:26
Sam Rashkin: So I included as an example resonates with a lot of people I go through home city as we're shrink is not just a Snickers bar. Bars is also for housing, and the housing is getting smaller and smaller, and one of the regular go to ways of being able to make the house smaller is to strengthen the storage in the house.
01:23:30:27 - 01:23:41:13
Sam Rashkin: And I think people are going to just, you know, really be frustrated in some of these homes.
01:23:41:16 - 01:23:53:00
Mike Collignon: Another question from on our appraisals and green mortgages truly up to speed with zero energy buildings.
01:23:53:02 - 01:24:19:06
Sam Rashkin: There's no such thing as a green mortgage that I know of, except for there might be some local banks around the country that I've seen that have a green mortgage. But let's say rank and file. By and large, you know, you have green appraisals, but not green mortgages that I know I believe there might be I know the IRA or these other new initiatives are going to introduce some new fund lending.
01:24:19:09 - 01:24:22:28
Sam Rashkin: I'm very upset that the.
01:24:23:00 - 01:24:49:18
Sam Rashkin: New homebuyer rebate program for $10,000 does not require the home to be at least Energy Star Zero ready if it's a new home. I think anytime you give a special entitlement gift to someone, you should expect good behavior. And the best behavior for our country is everyone buys more affordable homes that provide more wellness and more future value.
01:24:49:21 - 01:25:15:25
Sam Rashkin: And to let people get that $10,000 rebate. Not these. You're ready or you start to miss a huge mistake in government policy. So we have a tool, we have a rebate and we throw half of it away of its value. But but I believe there's some programs being muddled around bringing more type green mortgage types of initiatives, and we'll see if they come up.
01:25:15:25 - 01:25:24:07
Sam Rashkin: But I don't know of any national program right now, so maybe someone can correct me if they're listening.
01:25:24:09 - 01:25:40:02
Mike Collignon: We have a question from Seth. He wanted to know, how do we get good data about the time savings in like, on site construction time when you use manufactured or offsite building solutions?
01:25:40:05 - 01:26:17:03
Sam Rashkin: Measure. I met an offside company this week. Offsite company brought me down to Florida. What they're doing, they're building 30 dates. Unbelievable. 30 days. Now, most, most even production builders are building 100 days or more. 70 days times $500 a day is $35,000 and benefit very quickly eradicates almost any cost of this. If there is one, maybe there isn't one.
01:26:17:05 - 01:26:34:04
Sam Rashkin: So the way, the way, the way you figure out the difference and site built and systems built is measuring and we have the days or, you know, it just it's an easy thing to do.
01:26:34:07 - 01:26:42:11
Mike Collignon: And how are those savings given back to the homeowner and not kept by the general contractor?
01:26:42:14 - 01:27:04:25
Sam Rashkin: They may not be given that the bill. If I build a systems built on off site that has better strength, durability, resilience, indoor air quality that has great design, comes with a 20 year warranty or instead of a one year warranty.
01:27:04:28 - 01:27:29:03
Sam Rashkin: Can that be eaten by termites or insects? This is a type of home I saw, let's say on Monday. In a plant. Yeah, maybe they can build it for 30, 40, $50,000 less. But why would they charge it? It's a better home, so it may or may not show up in the price. What will happen, I believe, is prices are so out of whack and disconnected from income.
01:27:29:05 - 01:27:56:04
Sam Rashkin: A correction will come to the industry, as most people seem to, and the correction comes the site. The system was built. Builders offering all that additional value can drop their prices. That's what happened with electric vehicles. It was such a better experience. They are charging crazy prices at first, but when pressure came and had to compete more, they had bandwidth to drop the prices and still make a profit.
01:27:56:08 - 01:28:03:26
Sam Rashkin: So that's basically the position you can put yourself into.
01:28:03:28 - 01:28:16:16
Mike Collignon: Thanks, Mike. By the way, not me. Another Mike. I put a link in the chat for everyone to see. It's a listing of energy efficient mortgages from energy gov actually.
01:28:16:16 - 01:28:36:21
Sam Rashkin: So yeah, that would be the FHA energy efficient mortgage. And I think Fannie and Freddie are both looking at introducing energy efficient mortgages as well in the near term. But those are the old energy efficient mortgages. And that applies to.
01:28:36:24 - 01:28:46:22
Sam Rashkin: New homes, that improvement mortgages applied to existing homes. Again, I think only FHA is doing that right now.
01:28:46:24 - 01:28:49:22
Mike Collignon: Okay.
01:28:49:24 - 01:29:14:10
Mike Collignon: Final call for questions. If anybody's got one for us here, I got another one here though, Sam from excuse me from Zoran, our purchasers. So homebuyers, are they educated enough or even aware programs such as hers or thermal imaging as a way to see energy?
01:29:14:13 - 01:29:50:23
Sam Rashkin: A resounding no to the program recognition. So energy star hers. They're ready? No no, no. There are niche buyers which are not enough to grow a business around who are. But this is why today's session is so important. You have to translate the value of certification. Explain, for instance, if I'm already I'm in the top 1% of the builders in the country that are able to meet the nation's most federal government's most rigorous guidelines for high performance or energy star in the top 10%.
01:29:50:24 - 01:30:25:00
Sam Rashkin: You want to use these programs as a tool to build trust because you are certified independently. And I'm in a bucket that's exclusive, exclusive, exclusive 10% 1% passive houses have one tenth of 1% so resounding no to programs. It's your job to follow guidance that we talked about today. To translate infrared image is, as we discussed, a tool to create behavior change.
01:30:25:07 - 01:30:52:14
Sam Rashkin: If I build a house with six, I can show a frame house infrared image side by side, a sip house, and that'll be huge translation to a lay homebuyer about what it means to build with advanced construction versus 150 year old construction. And so. And that would all be the case if it's not a framed house wrapped in continuous insulation.
01:30:52:16 - 01:31:02:02
Sam Rashkin: But then when I frame a house and wrap it with continuous insulation, I'm going to suggest a sip house, maybe a lower cost option. So.
01:31:02:05 - 01:31:24:08
Sam Rashkin: No. So no one programs. Your job is you have to translate the value of those programs of certificate in what it means to be in a special exclusive club. And you have to use things like infrared images to prove the value and create experiences that people will never forget.
01:31:24:10 - 01:31:35:28
Mike Collignon: So we've got another question from Bill. He says if the if the savings don't also show up in the appraisals, why would the builder pass it along?
01:31:36:00 - 01:32:04:21
Sam Rashkin: They may not. Again, what has to what will happen is competitive forces. As more and more builders start building high performance homes. I think with 45 tax credits, you're going to see Energy Star go from maybe 90,000 to 140,000 150,000 homes a year. I believe you're going to see zero. And you ready to go from 7 or 8000 to maybe 40,000, 30,000 homes a year.
01:32:04:26 - 01:32:36:04
Sam Rashkin: That's a lot of homes competing for the buyers to buy them. And I think we're competitive forces. And I think, again, market corrections inevitably set in. You'll see the ability they have to drop their prices and pass on the ceilings, but they don't have to. And this is the advantage of their builder listening is this is an opportunity for greater profit or not, for you to sell it, lower price and be more competitive.
01:32:36:07 - 01:32:50:20
Mike Collignon: And we also had the comment that weatherization does a great job of training its workforce. But for the most part, he's seen that the buyer and the builder think the savings come from just paying carpenters and installers.
01:32:50:22 - 01:33:29:16
Sam Rashkin: Well, whether programs have tremendous bureaucracy costs, I like to see some measured energy saving effects from the programs and see that what we're getting and so heavily subsidized that I'm not sure how they scale once beyond the lower income housing demographic they target to mainstream users. So we'll we'll talk next week. But whether as Asian is a very well intended initiative, you know, I think they get it some basic and some basic insulation opportunities that are good.
01:33:29:18 - 01:33:54:00
Sam Rashkin: But there are so many funnels of heat loss, heat loss and heat gain and older construction. I like to see a really good, bankable study on what the real net savings are from all the weatherization improvements per home, and if someone has those to hear about them.
01:33:54:02 - 01:34:08:10
Mike Collignon: Sam alluded to we we do have one more seminar coming up. It is going to take place four weeks from today, on Thursday, May the 2nd, at 2 p.m. eastern time.
01:34:08:12 - 01:34:31:08
Mike Collignon: That's that's going to be kind of our debut. So we hope that you all attend and your friends to join us to be a great time. Good. I want to thank all of you for attending today, all the wonderful questions you asked us. And thank once again, Schneider Electric Solar and Panasonic Healthy Indoor Living Systems for their gender sponsorships.
01:34:31:14 - 01:34:42:10
Mike Collignon: And so next time I hope you enjoy the beauty and of spring and that your allergies don't bother you too much. Stay safe, stay healthy and take everyone so long.