Brookfield Homes Southland development uses model homes jammed with electronics and a special buyer's Tech Night to boost integrated system sales

It's the homebuilder's 21st-century equivalent of the eternal chicken-and-egg question. Builders are bombarded with all the reasons why they should be offering electronic options that range from home entertainment to energy management, but consumers aren't clamoring for these options. Before that happens, buyers need to understand how these options will enhance their lives, and builders' salespeople have to know how to sell them. The question is: Which has to come first?

In Newport, California, Brookfield Homes' Southland Division is tackling both at the same time. In August, the homebuilder introduced a new method of selling its in-home electronic systems at The Strand gated community. It was an event called Tech Night. Its purpose was to educate buyers on the real-world benefits of fully integrated home systems, and to do so without subjecting them to any sales pressure.

The attendees were homebuyers who had signed a contract with Brookfield, but who had not yet chosen options for their homes. "We wanted to develop a specific focus on technology instead of including it in our regular design appointment," says Jane Hauck, director of Brookfield's design studio. "We were trying to educate the buyer about home technology during that one appointment, but it was a huge task. We wanted to find a way to focus just one appointment on the most complicated of all the options for our homes, in terms of the customer's understanding what these options do."

At The Strand, that meant stuffing the two model units full of the electronic options available to the development's homebuyers. By including distributed audio, video, lighting control, intercoms and security features in the models, Brookfield can give homebuyers a flavor of how these products can enhance the experience of living in these homes.

Once sales were completed on phase one of the development, Brookfield invited buyers to the Tech Night, an evening demonstration of what each home system is, how it works, and what its benefits are. "It's a relaxed evening, with cookies and coffee, and we don't discuss price," says Marian Irons, systems design consultant with American Home Entertainment, the home integrator that installs the systems at the development. "This is not a selling environment, and we did the evening presentation about three weeks before the cut-off date, to allow plenty of time for the buyers to make up their minds about what kind of system they would want."

During the presentation, Irons suggested that buyers book a follow-up appointment with her to create a system unique to their needs. "The buyers who went through the Tech Night arrived for the design appointment with a better understanding not just of the systems, but of how they want to live in their new homes. That made the design consultation much quicker and easier."

For Marwah Felahy, a Tech Night attendee, the information she gathered at the presentation not only helped her better understand the electronic options for the home, but led her to buy more of them than she would have otherwise. "At first, we thought we would just prewire a number of the rooms for music," she says. "But after the presentation we decided to put speakers in the dining room and kitchen, and even included an LCD screen in the bathroom and an intercom." The additional purchases were a direct result, Felahy says, of understanding the convenience these provided, how they meshed with her lifestyle, and the ease of using the products themselves. "If we hadn't attended the Tech Night, it would have made it very difficult to know and understand all the options that were available to us."

Integration Evolution

While the early results of Brookfield's first Tech Night indicate a successful new method for selling home integration options, the road to this advanced sales technique was not without bumps. Brookfield was one of the first builders to offer home networks as a standard feature in its homes.

For the first three years, Brookfield offered just the home networks with no options. Along the way its salespeople learned some valuable lessons about how to sell tech products. One thing they saw was the importance of standardizing the products used in all new homes.

"What Brookfield found over the first few years was that the different integrators they used for different projects all bid with their own preferred home networking products, and each one was different," says Jacob Atalla, owner of Strategic Advantage, a land development and technology consultant who works with Brookfield. "We wanted to find individual manufacturers so we could standardize the products going into all of the houses."

Early on, the hodge-podge assortment of installed electronics made it difficult for Brookfield's design studio salespeople to learn all the different systems and products being installed. "So one customer might be getting brand A products and next one they talk to ten minutes later whose home is in a different development is getting brand B," Atalla explains. "This made it very difficult for the salespeople to understand the different features of each brand. And that meant they couldn't be very effective selling any of the products."

One solution Brookfield tried was a common one among homebuilders: referring buyers directly to the integrator, and letting the integrator sell the technology. "But we felt like we were losing control of our customers' homebuying experience by doing that," says Haulk. So they moved technology sales back to their model homes. "It was a way for us to retain more of the design control and maintain the quality of the buying experience."

Strength through Partners

The first Tech Night at The Strand was a direct result of a series of strategic partnerships that Brookfield has developed with equipment manufacturers and top-level integrators.

First on board, roughly three years ago, was home network equipment provider UStec. The arrangement allowed integrators installing home networks for Brookfield to get a special negotiated rate for all UStec equipment and further allowed for the design of selected packaged upgrades for audio, computer networking and the like. Standardizing around one manufacturer also simplified the task of choosing an integrator.

"UStec helped us develop our integrator pool by referring us to their UStec-authorized integrators," says Atalla.

Design studio employees can receive factory training under this set-up, and the repetition of providing information about single lines of products fosters greater product knowledge, Atalla says.

Steve Baker, regional sales manager for UStec, agrees. "There is a big learning curve when it comes to home networks," he says. "So if we can work with a builder exclusively, they can come to understand our products better, and that will help them do a better job educating buyers about the capabilities and the benefits of our products."

The home integration partnership also extends to the installing integrators. In the case of The Strand, product suppliers either gave equipment or sold it at steep discounts for use in the model homes. American Home Entertainment handled the installation in the two model homes, and the systems designer, Marian Irons, provided the system demonstration on Tech Night.

Other manufacturers now on board with Brookfield include Lutron for lighting control; Elan for audio, intercom and control touchscreens; DSC for security systems; and Hoover for central vacuums.

But beyond demonstrating options and upgrades, Tech Night also allows for the presentation of the standard home network provided in each home. At The Strand, because the price points of the homes are north of the $1 million mark, Brookfield chose a more robust standard system that allows for easier upgrades.

Irons, from American Home Entertainment, spent a portion of her time during Tech Night running down the features that all of the attendees would have in their new home, regardless of whether they purchased any upgrades. "For a lot of consumers, these particular products are still a mystery," explains Hauck. "Brookfield doesn't pretend that it is our expertise—we are a homebuilder. So we count on our integrator partners to help us. They can also do a better job of showing our customers the intrinsic value of the standard system."

While Tech Night features only the home electronics products, and attendees were committed buyers, Brookfield will also occasionally run what it calls "demo nights" at its model homes. These larger events include supplier representatives ranging from lighting controls to garage organizers, and include potential buyers, invitees. A demo night in September drew more than 100 attendees over the three-hour session, and home technology garnered intense interest.

Tech Nights will never be this crowded, says Atalla. Brookfield plans to offer a different Tech Night for each of The Strand's building phases, each phase representing from six to eight homes. This ensures a small group at each event. "It is a big help for me to have such a small group," says Irons. "I'm able to learn about each buyer's interests, what music they like, and how they want to live in their house, before we have a design meeting. Getting to know the buyer is the best way to help design a system that makes sense for them."

While only a handful of Brookfield's buyers have attended a Tech Night, the company is already pleased with the results. "I foresee this as something we will have at each and every neighborhood we do," says Hauck.

While model homes in other Brookfield developments may not be jammed as full of electronics as those at The Strand, Irons doesn't think it will diminish the value of these events. "Even in a property that has only a few speakers and music, I can really paint a wonderful picture for the homebuyer in this type of presentation and show it in the context of the buyer's lifestyle," she says. "And that is how you get people to understand and buy these items."

Chris Anderson is a writer based in Portland, Maine