Getting Started
“If you're going to start a new home building business, you need to sell homes,” says Stroud Homes owner James Stroud. That sounds pretty straight forward when James says it, but it seems that many builders wanting to go out on their own forget this critical point. Even James himself wasn’t even aware of this in the beginning.
“I thought it can’t be that hard. I went home and talked to my wife and said let’s just do up some designs and start selling houses. What we found is that it is harder than it looks,” explains James.
Creating a stable of home designs, which is necessary if you want to be competitive, does not just happen overnight. In fact, it was the time and money it took to create one design which led James to have a light bulb moment. That light bulb moment was to develop a franchise that works for builders.
In order to get clients over the line, you’ve got to have designs that are current, appealing and exciting.
“Customers nowadays expect builders to have something that excites them. Designs that solve problems that they didn’t know they had yet.”
And, this is exactly what Stroud Homes offers to its franchisees. A way to get started and to sell homes. Because, without these designs to offer clients, it’s like going to a restaurant with no menu.
The Stroud Menu
At Stroud Homes, we are not custom home builders but our homes are customer designed.
“Most of our designs are made in reaction to requests made by people who come into our retail outlet”
As a company, we are about creating a home that works for our clients - for their families, their lifestyle and the climate they live in.
When Stroud Homes launch into a new area, part of the process is talking to locals about what they want and need from a home.
“We’re not so arrogant to believe that we’ve got designs to suit every need, budget and geography.”
What we do have are the ingredients to make home designs practical and exciting to the people of that region.
These ingredients include drafts people, computer artists, marketers and building business specialists. We have the ingredients – and the utensils which are our proven systems – to make our builders competitive in their market.
“Without these designs, it’s not practical or possible for a young building family to go and compete in the new home building market.”
Something Special
The Elwood 234 is an example of this process and it is a design we created with the help of our Melbourne North West builder, Adam Paradowski.
The Elwood 234 was designed to be something special as it is our first display home in Victoria. “We did what we’ve always done. We looked at how people live,” says James. Then we translated what they told us into a design.
The design we chose to feature in Victoria includes a ‘Sports Bar’ which allows families to be together yet zoned. Perfect for Grand Final Day, this small but clever feature speaks to our Melbourne clientele.
Our Point?
Most builders can do a bit of everything but we still hire a painter to paint or a tiler to tile, simply because they can do the job faster and better.
At Stroud Homes all we think about is marketing, creating designs that sell and putting in place systems for your business. So, at the end of the day you can just think of us as your marketing, designs and system subbie.