"Trust people and they will be true to you;
Treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson -
Led newly-formed Lennar Homes division to #1 in region in one year. Promoted to Division President and charged with delivering 600 sales and 700 closings with inexperienced staff and insufficient inventory to sell. Teamed inexperienced staff with experienced personnel in other divisions. Created and implemented aggressive and thorough training program, performance reviews, and success celebrations and rewards. Negotiated and acquired eight new residential communities to increase inventory. Achieved 77 sales and 34 closings over goal. Obtained best divisional return on net asset (24%).
Turned around unprofitable Lennar Division to achieve first time profitability. Asked to take over division that had not hit sales and closing projections, and unprofitable for several years. Determined sales and profit losses were caused by large discounts and noncompetitive financing programs. Developed and implemented program to sell homes prior to construction. Tiered discounts and financing in relation to construction stage. Restructured sales teams’ commission with higher incentives paid on early stage sales. Led region in sales, despite having least number of communities to sell.
Decreased division’s home sales fallout rates 25% and exceeded industry norm with a 32% return on assets. NuHome Division specialized in first-time and low-income market. Fallout rate was 43%, and sales and closing projections were not being met. Developed and deployed buyer mortgage approval status tracking program. Hired experienced and bilingual mortgage individual to troubleshoot loan issues. Trained sales consultants on mortgage and pre-approval process with lenders prior to executing sales agreement. Achieved 152 sales and 128 closings ahead of plan.
Increased Lennar Division’s buyer satisfaction from lowest tier to #1 in company, as well as Houston market. Positioned sales consultants as Team Leaders for buyer satisfaction, and coordinating all staff in a community. Set response rate goals. Hired more bilingual sales consultants. Established home buying seminars for first-time buyers to manage their expectations. Achieve #1 ranking, and first division in company to overtake competitor’s previous three-year reign.
Stopped Lennar’s largest purchasing department errors and internal audit violations. Asked to step in and correct company’s operations in its largest purchasing department in the nation. Reorganized department with department managers and cross-functional teams to ensure better communication and fewer errors. Established new control and review processes to assure budget accuracy. Developed and deployed operations procedures manual. Obtained 96% budget accuracy for six homebuilding divisions in the department. Achieved zero deficiencies during the next internal audit – a first since inception of operations.
Improved construction cycle time with introduction of web-based scheduling and material ordering in the field. Company was having difficulty obtaining vendor buy-in, and field personnel support of the new web-based scheduling and material ordering system. Established department as “hub” responsible for integration and integrity of data input and output. Established field manager training to gain understanding and field support. Phased in implementation in a manageable fashion. Encouraged vendor feedback, and provided support to them through a direct hot-line system to “hub”. Met all reduced cycle time targets. Increased field personnel’s control. Achieved complete vendor compliance.
Saved $2M in material costs and estimating time from two weeks to one day, with new estimating system. Estimating wing was outsourcing take-offs for new and modified product, taking two weeks and costing $450 per house plan. Researched and worked with software company to develop estimating take-off software that could be used by estimating staff without need for outsourcing. Trained staff on software. Established process for field verification of take-offs on system and delivered, ensuring tighter accuracy. Saved $34K in costs. Achieved estimation level of five plans per day. Stopped material count errors.
Integrated acquisition in half the projected time with no disruption in operations. Following acquisition of another builder, needed to integrate its material codes and budgets into Lennar, while simultaneously dismantling acquisition’s home design studio and rebuilding in a new location, without disrupting on-going operations. Established project team to match purchase’s system codes and material description with Lennar. Formed another team to revamp design studio. Hired additional temporary personnel to facilitate massive data entries. Completed integration with few errors.
