In this video, our VIC and SA Franchise Development Manager Anthony Houston, alongside our Melbourne Outer Eastern franchise owner Cammeron Gale, discuss the benefits of having a well-known brand like Stroud Homes behind you. This includes greater recognition in the market, instilling more confidence in the customer, and the ability to withstand market fluctuations that an independent builder may struggle through. Watch our video to learn more!
Video Transcript:
Anthony: G’day, guys, Anthony Houston here from Stroud Homes. I’m with Cammeron Gale here from our Outer Eastern Office. Camm, welcome, and just before you were mentioning with Matt about how the brand has really helped you get some recognition, having a place to work out of.
I wanted to touch a bit further on a few things. Having a brand around you, we all know in construction, things go up and down throughout the market. Things are quite good right now, but if the grants run out, and this overseas travel stops, I think things may get tough for a while. What do you think, and how do you think having a brand like Stroud behind you is going to help you with that?
Cammeron: Yeah, I think having the customers installs a lot of confidence into the customers to start with, and having a product there that’s recognisable and a unique facade, and, unique house types as well, is a big plus. So, having a point of difference, I think relating to the brand that we use is a fantastic thing.
Anthony: Yeah. What about the marketing in terms of, like, the website, the online chat, getting leads, when other tradies who are working on their own, they’re going to have to go out and search for all that work, and you’re going to have that confidence of that constant influx of leads throughout the head office support, can you see that happening even through a downturn?
Cammeron: Definitely, with the leads. Well, coming from obviously, an independent myself, the leads many times over, and I don’t have to go searching for them, which is great, so they’re actually finding me. So, to have the opportunity to try and generate a lead into a job is a great plus of having the brand behind you.
Anthony: Right, so another big aspect of our head office support is the sales support you get. Coming on board with Stroud, how have you found that, and how has that helped you in your initial months taking off as a Stroud franchise?
Cammeron: Definitely, implementing systems that head office has provided has been a fantastic tool to evolve those leads into jobs, which has proven successful early on in the piece for me. Yeah, giving the systems and the capability and the confidence to be able to progress that side of the business is a great plus, and understand it a lot more than previously.
Anthony: Yeah. And having those systems in place, you can kind of see what your months are gonna look like months ahead. Whereas, if you’re just working out the back of your car, you have to do the trade yourself, then you have to go and find the work late at night. All those things kind of come together through our systems. Have you found that as well?
Cammeron: Most definitely the forecasting of jobs and seeing what’s in the pipeline ahead is a great plus, and allows you to install confidence into the customer going, “Yes, we can start your job here” without having the unknown of previously where, “Oh, I don’t know if I’m going to finish that in time.” So, it has definitely been a great…
Anthony: And that’s the one thing that a lot of builders can forget is the customer journey and knowing you’ve got the confidence that’s going to actually, you’re going to provide them with a good customer journey. Obviously, installs really good brand awareness for yourself and for Stroud, and everyone’s winning altogether.
So, how does making the customer journey flow really easily throughout the whole process affect you? And how does that make you feel? Does it instill a lot of confidence in you?
Cammeron: My confidence in the sales process, once joining Stroud has been fantastic. Having a place to bring someone and systems and the way of going through the process and explaining it to the client has been fantastic. So, it’s given me a lot more confidence, which then goes on to the client there as well.
So, I was working all day and then going around to clients’ homes trying to go through a sales process and work off pamphlets, and bits and pieces on the internet. So, having a great sales process and technique that’s been taught through head office has been a great asset to me and allows me to grow my company and eventually understand that role in depth and be able to in future have someone in that role.
And having that forecast ability to know what work or potential work is ahead and having the systems to be able to control that and close those sales as well.
Anthony: Yeah. Makes you feel pretty good, doesn’t it?
Cammeron: It does.
More Information:
If you’re looking to give yourself a 10 year advantage and join a successful home building franchise, we would love to hear from you. We have a number of franchise territories available around Australia and are looking for like-minded builders to join the Stroud family. Get in touch with us today to learn more.