Berkeley Hall
Bluffton, South Carolina
Name of Project:
Berkeley Hall
Community details:
Total acres: 865, total units: 650
Homesites from: $219,500 – $1,650,000
Community highlights:
Tom Fazio golf courses
Seven restaurants
44,000-square-foot clubhouse
Gardens & community lakes
Destination:
Bluffton, South Carolina
Overview
Berkeley Hall is a private, gated golf community located near Bluffton, South Carolina, dubbed by Links Magazine and Travel & Leisure as “one of America’s 100 premier properties.” With an exquisite clubhouse and expansive views of the Lowcountry’s beautiful marsh-lined rivers, it is truly a golfer’s paradise.
The Challenges
A changing economy and declining interest in private club memberships nationwide left Berkeley Hall’s sales significantly less robust than projected. Additionally, management was attempting to introduce built product to a sales team divided between new agents with little experience and seasoned agents whose history was in land-only sales.
Enter Catalyst
Catalyst assumed control over all strategic planning and management while conducting an independent analysis of Berkeley Hall’s sales and marketing teams. Weekly, monthly, and quarterly training programs were implemented to bring these teams together and train them to communicate with each other – preparing them to nimbly adjust to the needs and challenges of a changing real estate market. Catalyst also implemented a weekly training program for all sales agents to increase their understanding of the subtleties between handling home sales as opposed to land sales, generating maximum buyer enthusiasm, and increasing their ability to close contracts faster with lower recession rates. A new system was put into place for reporting and tracking the marketing budget. Under Catalyst’s guidance, Berkeley Hall was able to cut the marketing portion of all sales costs by a third while maximizing the impact of the dollars spent.
Results
Within fourteen months, Berkeley Hall’s marketing expenses were cut by a full third, while sales volume doubled. In one year’s time, sales were drastically accelerated, volume tripled to over $95 million, and Catalyst achieved a complete sellout, allowing the community and all amenities to be turned over to the homeowners in early 2005, ahead of schedule.
“We liked working with the Catalyst team. They did a good job of managing, training and motivating the sales force and were very level headed and well balanced in their thinking.”