| Profile: |
Harry Redfearn |
| Home: |
Asheville, North Carolina |
| Age: |
40-something |
| Profession: |
Real estate sales and marketing innovator. Authority on master planned communities. |
| Latest Accomplishment: |
Founded Private Mountain Communities in 2006 |
| Favorite Quote: |
"We arrived on a Saturday armed with only a map. We left Tuesday morning the proud owners of a magnificent property."
— Recent PMC customer |
His story
Every deployment of BrightDoor is unique. Private Mountain Communities tapped BrightDoor to create a proprietary, user-friendly Lifestyle Survey to match homebuyers — many of them affluent baby boomers — with communities that best suit their lifestyles. BrightDoor’s CRM database generates real-time business intelligence and increases sales efficiencies.
The ultimate lifestyle match
"Western North Carolina has more than 200 master planned communities, so buyers can spend years searching for the right one. Boomers are time-starved. They can come into one of our Private Mountain Communities Discovery Showrooms and take our Lifestyle Survey on an interactive touchscreen. In 10 minutes, they learn they don’t need to see 198 communities, they just should visit these two."
An interactive kiosk at Asheville’s Visitor Center
"The Asheville Chamber of Commerce Visitor Center chose Private Mountain Communities to be a strategic partner largely because of BrightDoor. They allowed us to put in a 46-inch interactive plasma touchscreen built into a custom cabinet that matches the cherry wood of their décor.
"In the past, when folks asked about communities, there’d just be a hodgepodge of brochures. Now they ‘re directed to our kiosk. It is very state of the art, all done in real time. The screen gives them directions to our office about 2 ½ blocks away. By the time they walk over, we have compiled a personal portfolio of matches for them."
On BrightDoor
"BrightDoor is one of the primary keys to our company’s success. Without them, what we’re doing would be impossible."
On ROI
"It's bigger than return on investment for us. BrightDoor was a small license fee versus having to build the survey from scratch, costing hundreds of thousands if not half a million dollars to do all the things BrightDoor does now. It might have taken me a year to work with programmers, which would mean loss of revenue for a year and the decrease in sales efficiency because I didn’t have it. We’re more productive. We’re better at tracking the initial inquiry. Followup is more professional, because BrightDoor guides our agents. It’s time to call that customer, and here are your notes and a history of everything that ever transpired."
For developers: Perfect presentations every time
"With BrightDoor’s help, we built an interactive presentation for every development in western North Carolina. We love the interactivity of looking at a master plan and showing the various homes and home sites. If you click on a lot, we actually have loaded in the recorded plat. Anything you can think of can be loaded into the database. We love how easy it is to update content. A sales agent can go to a community, take a video of a lot, and load it.
"BrightDoor helps your sales people take each customer from A to Z and never forget a step."
A focus group of 1,000
"Our survey is really a focus group - in real time - of 1,000 people. As a consultant, I can walk into a charette, an envisioning session for a brand-new community, and show the builders and developers all the current buying behaviors. They used to build what they thought customers wanted. Now they can build what customers say they want right now. Big change. There’s a sea of sameness out there, and successful communities are the ones constantly asking what consumers want."
On trends
"Probably the single biggest trend in master planned communities today versus five years ago is that customers continue to love the beauty and privacy of a one- to five-acre wooded home sites, but they miss the connection of the old traditional neighborhood. So the fastest growing amenity is a walk able town village or club village that acts as social center where residents can meet for a cup of coffee and the newspaper at a café in the morning and have a glass of wine with friends in the tavern after a great day of golf. These villages also commonly include a chapel, a general store, an organic farmer’s market, a wellness center, and more. Boomers want it all."
For more, please visit www.privatemountaincommunities.com
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