Make a customer's dreams come true.
Q: Why is Oregon Log Homes the leader in its industry?
A: They don't build things, they build dreams and they understand this fully. Every customer's ideas are treated with respect and the people at Oregon Log Home take personal pride in being part of making dreams come true for others.
While making millions on her creation, The Advertising Arts College, Tracy Myers always says she was in the business of launching careers.
Her work was dedicated to helping young people who were not interested in a traditional college curriculum earn a degree and win their dream job in advertising.
We're a country of dreamers. That's why the weight loss business is so big -- excuse the pun. People dream of being thin so they buy every item they can find that will help them make that picture they have in their head come true. Most of the people who buy those items don't ever achieve their ideal weight, but that's OK. They want to, they think about it, they try and all along there are entrepreneurs selling them the path to their dreams.
What dreams can you sell? How does this idea affect your marketing and sales efforts? What new product or service could you invent that helps people work toward seeing their dreams come true?
Clip from: Oregon Log Homes - they're building beauty.
Oregon: As a young ski instructor on Mount Hood, Mike Neary built his first log home for himself. When friends and family all bragged on it and wanted a log home too, he knew he had stumbled on to his life's work.
Today his company, Oregon Log Homes, builds the most beautiful log homes in the world. The National Home Builders Association gave it "The Best In American Living" award and that won the attention of Disney. Oregon Log Home was given the opportunity to build the Fort Wilderness Lodge in Orlando.
While much of the work is done by hand, Mike invented a way to automate some of the process which keeps the company competitive while still thoroughly unique.
HATTIE: Every serious business today has a web presence. At OregonLogHomes.com you can read about the history of the company and the staff. You can see examples of past work and my favorite part is the time Mike takes on the website to teach. From the navigation bar on the bottom of every page you can choose Walling Styles, for example. On this page, Mike gives you a close up sketch and describes the difference between handcrafted saddle notched techniques and the machine-milled styles.
You can also see how logs can be used as accents as some people don't want an entire home made out of logs. You can have log staircases, log fireplace mantles, log stair rails, log trusses and maybe anything you can imagine made out of logs. I also like the section on the web that teaches the visitor how to get started designing a log home.
Small business owners like Mike are using the web in ways that save the shopper and the company's staff time. Anything we can do to save time and reduce hassle for customers is worth doing. Add pages to your site that will allow the customer to learn on their own schedule. They'll then be more informed and easier to sell when they pick up the phone to call you.
HATTIE: For 16 years, you really had to struggle because no bank would have anything to do with you. And you had to self-finance.
MIKE: That's right. Yeah. The banks didn't want to talk to you until you were successful, when it was extremely difficult to be successful when you had no money to do it. So everything we did was out of pocket and there were some real lean years there.
HATTIE: Why didn't you quit?
MIKE: I just couldn't imagine doing anything else.
HATTIE: (Voiceover) Mike and his team are not building houses. They are helping people make their dreams come true. Do you ever have people come to you with a little cocktail napkin and say, `Oh, can you build this house?' Does that ever happen?
JEFF: Oh, yeah. In fact, today, here we got a paper plate house. This is somebody's heart right here. This is their dream home.
HATTIE: So you've got to do a bid?
JEFF: Oh, sure. And we will respond to this, absolutely. It's great. We love it when people do this. It's wonderful. This makes life fun for us, when we can take somebody's paper plate and we end up with a beautiful artistic creation for them.
HATTIE: To build your business, when you are approached with a problem, you must be confident, not only just in yourself, but in your people and their ability to deliver on a promise. I'll see you next time.