Two friends of ours, Bill O’Gorman from Lushin and Associates, and Lori Lewis from Residential Warranty Company LLC (RWC) have been encouraging us to join the Indianapolis homebuilders association.

Bill has been active in the Builders Association of Greater Indianapolis for years and Lori is an associate member of BAGI, the Detroit Metropolitan Building Industry Association, the Southern Indiana HBA and the Homebuilders Association of Fort Wayne.

We are excited about the opportunities that are available to us now that we are members of BAGI and the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB).

On June 1, 2008, URBaCS unveiled the Simple Referral Program for homebuilders. The Ultimate Referral Builder and Customer Satisfaction application now has a way to monitor the effectiveness of referral generation.

Many builders have excellent incentives in place for homeowners that refer friends that buy. We’ve seen a few builders that pony up as much as $2,000 for each referral. This is a great tool to increase sales but too many times there are rules and stipulations that make giving a referral too difficult (i.e. not available if a realtor is involved).

The Simple Referral Program from URBaCS was created to simplify the referral process and drive traffic to the model homes and sales offices. The process is easy:

1. The homeowner e-mails an invitation to a friend to visit the model home/sales office
2. The friend brings in the e-mail which includes a unique code
3. The salesperson enters the unique code into the URBaCS application
4. The homeowner and their friend each get a gift-card from popular stores like Amazon.com, Starbucks and Wal-Mart.

The best part about the Simple Referral Program is that we at URBaCS manage, monitor, mail and pay for each and every referral that is generated.

For more information check out www.SimpleReferralProgram.com

Our design team has been working hard to bring on additional design templates to offer homebuilders better branding options. Until now, URBaCS has been limited to one standard layout and color scheme. Today we are unveiling three new themes which are available in near-infinite color combinations.

New builders now have the option to choose one of the following three designs:

We plan to have two more themes ready within 30 days. We’ll be sure to post client profiles here when new builders come online.

URBaCS has partnered with thesalescenter.org to offer free sales training to all URBaCS staff level users. An RSS feed has been setup on the dashboard of all staff level users that log in to URBaCS.

The Sales Center is the premier online resource for sales advice and coaching.

It has been awhile since we last updated the URBaCS blog. Since our last post we have been working on a couple of different projects that have taken some of our time. Now we are going to get back into the swing of putting new information up on the blog. Over the last year we have added content that we felt was unique or interesting (at least to us). Sometimes it had to do with the state of the housing market, other times it was focused in on interesting technology. This year our goal is to be more focused on bringing you better information about the URBaCS product and our process.

Goal #1

Write a minimum of one weekly post about how to use the URBaCS program, or a best practice article.

Goal #2

Reach goal #1 ( No just kidding!) Our plan is to bring on a minimum of four new builders a month. To do this we are fine tuning our marketing plans. We will bring you more on this in a later post.

Look for more goals in the near future.

Stanley Bing has written many books on business. My favorite still by far is the first Bing book I read called Throwing the elephant: Zen and the art of managing up. I was working for a mini elephant at the time. I wasn’t even aware of that fact until I read Mr. Bing’s book. The book is a fast read and full of funny almost make yourself roll off the couch laughing humor. Be careful if you have hard wood or ceramic floors. You could give yourself a concussion.

Are bosses evil, heartless creatures that live only to make our lives miserable? Not really. Stanley Bing uses the elephant to accurately describe some bosses. Elephants are the largest creatures in the jungle. They wonder any place they like without fear of any creature. Sometime their brains tell them to run one direction and other times their brains tell them to wonder off in a completely opposite direction. Where ever they go they spread destruction. Not because they are mean or cruel, they are just the biggest creatures in the jungle. When they move their large feet trample the earth and any lesser creature that happens into the elephant’s path. Elephants don’t do this maliciously, they just don’t notice all of the lesser animals (us) trampled under their large feet. That is how Stanley Bing describes an average boss. His teachings in this book educate us on how to recognize the elephants in our lives and then instruct us how to live in the same jungle (workplace) as these creatures and not become a smudge between their toes. Through proper grooming and yes training, you too can become skilled at manipulating your elephant to do your bidding. This hilarious book entertains and enlightens all at the same time. I have read it three times now and find some new little nugget of wisdom every time. Enjoy!

This is our first crack at a training video. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Now that the blog is starting to take shape, I thought it would be a good idea to add additional content that you may find useful. One of our goals with URBaCS is to make it so simple even a cave man can do it. Oops. Sorry big and powerful insurance company. What I meant to say is so easy even a middle aged executive can use it. Which when you think about it, it’s kind of the same thing. So our topic today is ‘how to get started.’

If you are a builder, the easiest way to get started is to visit www.tryurbacs.com/trial.php. This will take you to the sign up page. All you need to do is put in your company name, website address, an email address, and a password. Click on the ‘Create Free URBaCS Account’ button and you are done. That’s it.

You will immediately receive a couple of emails outlining how to start using your new URBaCS account. Each page inside the system includes a set of operating instructions and we have also created Tour and Frequently Asked Questions sections. In addition, I will be posting the next steps in upcoming blog entries.

If you’re not ready to sign up for a trial account, please visit www.urbacs.com to find more information about how URBaCS can help your company.

We would also love to speak with you directly. Please email us or call us.

After countless hours of debate we have decided to take this blog to a new level and in a different direction. We will no longer post horror stories about the ‘doomed’ housing market. Instead we want to talk about starting and growing a software company. But more specifically a software company for the new home industry.

We will post insights into the decisions that we make and why. We plan to use this space to make our company nearly transparent to the outside world. You won’t find financial statements or legal documents here. We will however post pricing models, sales decisions and growth objectives. We hope to become a tool for students and entrepreneurs.

Today Pulte homes announced their Preliminary Results for Q1 2007. To read the article Click here.

They listed the following items as known risks of doing business in the new home industry:

• general economic and business conditions
• interest rate changes and the availability of mortgage financing
• the relative stability of debt and equity markets
• competition
• the availability and cost of land and other raw materials
• the availability and cost of insurance covering business risks
• shortages and the cost of labor
• weather related slowdowns
• slow growth initiatives and/or local building moratoria
• governmental regulation, including the interpretation of tax, labor and environmental laws
• changes in consumer confidence and preferences
• required accounting changes
• terrorist acts and other acts of war
• other factors over which there is little or no control.

As the second largest builder in the U.S. (based on permits pulled) Pulte faces many problems that may not be felt by regional or local builders. That said, look at the list above and ask yourself if you face the same challenges. More often than not, I’m betting yes.