As corporate relocation opportunities continue to become more expensive and scarce in comparison to a few years ago, our relocation team has increased its focus on home-grown opportunities. Augusta, Ga. is home to Fort Gordon, a United States Army base, which houses critical missions including cyber command and the signal corp. With more than 30,000 employees crossing into and out of Fort Gordon’s gates daily, our relocation team zeroed in on the giant opportunity right in front of us.
Military on the Move® has been Blanchard and Calhoun’s go-to marketing program to serve military families in our area since we rolled it out in 2015. Its popularity among our agents has grown annually since day one, and we’ve noticed it becoming an increasingly larger source of the relocation department’s bottom line.
Ours is a traditional relocation department, where we handle corporate, broker to broker and affinity buyers and sellers. We close approximately 170 transactions each year, with a volume of around $1.8M. This year, MOM® closings surpassed traditional corporate closings and became the number one source of closings in the relocation department. MOM closings have not only become the largest category of closings in the department, but 42% of all relocation closings in 2018 were MOM transactions.
Blanchard and Calhoun attributes some of the program’s success to its commitment to being an active part of the local military community. In 2018, our agents participated in several military-related functions, including buying lunch for 50 soldiers at a local restaurant in May for Military Appreciation Month, sponsoring breakfast for the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) several times a year, providing financial support and toys for the annual Christmas House (toys and meals for 300 military families) sponsoring a golf tournament at Fort Gordon and remembering our MOM® buyers and sellers each year with holiday and anniversary cards. “As a military family, we love to do business with companies who respect the military and the challenges families deal with each time we move,” said Jennifer Dixon, whose family used the MOM® program when they bought their home through a Blanchard and Calhoun agent a few years ago. Jennifer is now an agent with our company and she said that part of the reason she chose Blanchard and Calhoun was because of its partnership with MOM®.
We’re honored and proud to receive the 2018 Rainmaker Lead Generation Award in Las Vegas.