Rick’s Bio

First Job: Electrical Fitter with The Electricity Trust of South Australia

Lessons Learned:

  1. Learning a trade is a fortune. It is where theory, technology, skills and know-how meet. Its not so much that its a reliable way to get a job and earn a living. It is more about how thinking skills and hand skills combine to use knowledge, standards and systems to create something new that will last.
  2. Logic, common sense,schematics and executing your plans are fundamentals in any trade.
  3. All knowledge and experience is transferable. It can be reused in other disciplines, and in other ways and re-purposed.
  4. Once knowledge is transferred into your hands as a skill, it is never forgotten, and can be reused thirty years later. It is reliable because it is consistent with natural laws.

First Sales Job: Electrical Sales Engineer, Email LTD, HVAC systems

Lessons learned:

  1. Sales is mostly about finding the people who have the projects where your product is the best fit, or the only valid choice. Its not trying force “square pegs into round holes”.
  2. Things have to be designed properly if they are to do the intended job. If you don’t know its intended job, you can still design, but you can’t custom design for a purpose you don’t understand.
  3. In the entire scheme of a large project, such as a factory or a multi-storey commercial building project, your product input may be small, but it is crucial to the success of the entire project.
  4. A better product at a higher price can be justified on Return on Investment or lower maintenance costs or durability on a commercial project.
  5. Price is not as important as quality, durability, reliability and service to people that want to make money from your product.
  6. Getting customers to come to you is the best way to do business. But you have to see the scope of the project to have the best solution. So going to see the project is essential.
  7. Being available when the customer is ready to buy is the greater part of luck in sales.

First Home Sales Consultant Job: AV Jennings, Adelaide. [Also Worked with AV Jennings in Brisbane]

Lessons learned:

  1. Having the biggest prestigious name makes the sale easier, but you still have to use quality produces and have skilled tradesmen to deliver a great home, quality build, on time and within budget. You still have to be good yourself.
  2. Customers buy for their reasons, not ours.
  3. You can work long hours in sales, but you can’t keep it up. Make time for rest, relaxation, family and friends.

Other home builders I have worked with:

Villaworld:

Lessons Learned:

  1. Investors are the best market for ready built low cost  housing at an acceptable quality.
  2. Its easier to sell cheap than sell nice, but not nearly as satisfying.

Galaxy Homes: [And Peter Eden Living]

Lessons Learned:

  1. People will pay a premium for quality you can clearly demonstrate.
  2. Skilled trade gangs are pure gold.
  3. In some markets a higher price can mean higher volumes of sales, if the customer can see and wants higher quality.
  4. The master of the art of design produces desire to own and status in every display home they build, even the tiny cottage or villa.

Merlin Homes:

Lessons Learned:

  1. Great design is attractive to real buyers. Lookers can only see price per square metre.
  2. A well designed smaller home looks and feels bigger.

Award Homes:

Lessons Learned:

  1. “What you see is what you get” is a powerful influence because it builds trust.
  2. A small builder with no advertising budget can compete successfully with a big builder, because being small is attractive to some home buyers.
  3. If you are small you have to be more nimble at finding niches to work with, and solutions for each clients needs, so that they value what you have and who you are. Part of that will be that you are a small builder.
  4. If you are small, promote it as an asset.

Other Things I’ve learned since:

  1. Discovering your customers real needs and budget is more important than knowing everything about your product.
  2. People who have supplied land to Orbit in the past are a great asset to my customers.
  3. Good Working Relationships with land developers is essential and will help me to help my customers get what they want.
  4. The key to building opportunities is putting your customers needs before your own.
  5. Allowing people to find you is as important as outreach in sales.

Please feel free to call me anytime on 0413 268 166 about building your next home.

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