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Lead Tennessee Radio features conversations with the leaders who are moving Tennessee forward. Topics include rural development, broadband, technology, legislation, policy and more. The podcast is produced by the Tennessee Broadband Association.
Intro:
The following program is brought to you by the Tennessee
Broadband Association.
Lead Tennessee Radio, conversations with the leaders moving our
state forward.
We look at the issues shaping Tennessee's future: rural
development, public policy, broadband,
healthcare, and other topics impacting our communities.
Carrie Huckeby:
Hello, everyone. I'm Carrie Huckeby, the executive director of
the Tennessee Broadband Association.
My guest on this episode of Lead Tennessee Radio is no stranger
to the broadband industry.
That's Kaleigh Cox, director of marketing at DxTel.
DxTel is a TNBA platinum member.
They provide broadband marketing services to rural ISPs through
their Harper Marketing Library, Harper
Studios offering video, and actually our TNBA Conference opening
video was produced by them this
past year. We loved it.
Cooper did a great job coming to Nashville, interviewing our
legislators, our Speaker of the House, and also our key
players. They also have a newly released e-sports gaming
platform, and Fiber Homes.
And fiber homes is what we are going to talk about.
So welcome, Kaleigh.
Kaleigh Cox:
Thank you so much, Carrie.
I'm really excited to be here.
Carrie Huckeby:
Well, I think we would all agree that the housing market is kind
of a wild ride right now, and people are
moving from state to state for all kinds of reasons.
And Tennessee is one of the fastest growing states in the
country for not only business, but also for individuals.
And they need a place to call home.
They need a place to live.
So they have this checklist of things, or I imagine they do,
that they are looking for, and I can't imagine
that broadband isn't on that list.
So first, it's find a realtor, and there's plenty of those
around.
So tell us about how Fiber Homes works – bringing together that
realtor, the buyer and then how
the ISP fits into that picture.
Kaleigh Cox:
Yeah. Great question.
And as someone, I don't know if you know this about me, Carrie,
but as someone who lived in Memphis, Tennessee for two years, I
am not at all surprised that it's one of the fastest growing
states in the country.
I love Tennessee.
I'm in South Carolina now, and that's where I'm from.
But if I didn't live in South Carolina, I would live in
Tennessee.
But yeah, we are seeing broadband as the most important
consideration for homebuyers.
They are ranking that more, homebuyers are ranking that as an
important consideration than are even ranking commute time or
local amenities. So it's extremely important.
And you're right, there's kind of three groups here that Fiber
Homes is looking to connect.
There's the home buyer, who wants that fast, reliable internet,
and our industry knows that means fiber.
And then there is the local ISP that really wants to let all of
these new movers in their markets know they exist before that
buyer locks in to a two year contract with a national provider,
who has worse service and worse customer service, but they just
didn't know their options.
And then you've got the realtor, and the realtor wants to
provide an excellent client experience.
They want to be positioned as the local expert, and there's a
lot happening right now in the real estate industry.
There's a lot of lawsuits around inflated commissions for
agents, and then you've got rising interest rates when compared
to recent years. And so we're expecting it to get harder for
realtors to win clients to sell homes.
And so they need a way to stand out and provide excellent
service.
And I'm mostly talking about the buyer's agent here who
represents the home buyer, like you brought up.
But it's also good to remember the listing agent, and it's their
job to put the home on the market and help the seller.
And something I want to mention there is Fiber Broadband
Association recently shared the results of a study they did, and
found that fiber now adds 4.9% on average to the value of a
single family home.
And so that's exciting because we've been using the 3.1% stat
across our industry since 2015, and so we knew it had to be
higher than that now. But it's nice to have some data there.
But at Fiber Homes, we want to serve all of those needs at once
and create a win-win-win for the home buyer, the ISP and the
realtor. So we provide buyers with the most accurate address
level information that is available in terms of broadband
availability. We provide the ISP with multiple pathways to reach
those new buyers early in the home buying
process, including by partnering with local agents.
And then we provide real estate agents with a bunch of free
tools that help them provide that better customer experience,
either as a buyer's agent or a seller's agent.
Carrie Huckeby:
Well, I can see that the realtor could really use this as an
extra tool because it is so competitive.
I mean, if you just watch social media, how many realtors are on
there?
You know, they're looking for listings, or they have listings.
So I know an extra tool in their tool bag would be helpful, like
Fiber Homes.
But you sent me an email a couple of weeks ago with some really
impressive stats on top of that 4.9%.
That's good to know.
Tell us about Realtracs.
What is that?
How are the realtors using it, and what does that really mean to
some of the TNBA broadband companies?
Kaleigh Cox:
Yes! We are so excited about this, Carrie.
So Realtracs is an MLS.
And for those who may not know, that stands for Multiple Listing
Service.
That's the platform or the database where agents and homebuyers
view homes on the market.
So yes, sites like Zillow are very popular, but what those sites
are essentially doing is scraping all of the local and regional
MLS around the country, the true data source, and then compiling
them into one user friendly site.
So when you work with an actual realtor, they're going to be
working from the source, the local MLS.
And that's where they post listings.
That's where they browse listings.
That's how they share info with their clients.
And there's about 600 MLS across the US.
Realtracs is far and away the largest one in the state of
Tennessee.
It also reaches into Alabama, Georgia and Kentucky.
I checked their website.
According to that, they have over 20,000 users and more than
1,900 real estate offices.
So that's a very large reach as far as MLS is go.
We turned on an integration with them in September.
That integration was via CRS data.
So CRS, I'm getting a little in the weeds here, but bear with
me.
Carrie Huckeby:
That's okay.
Kaleigh Cox:
That stands for Courthouse Retrieval Systems.
That company provides a lot of MLS, including Realtracs, all the
data that they would pull from courthouses to create a
general property report that agents pull any time their listing
or showing a home.
So using CRS, we build an integration so that all of those
general property reports that agents pull every day now
have a section on broadband availability that's based on Fiber
Homes's data.
So that means that if an ISP has certified that address in Fiber
Homes, they show up at the top of the list as being a, or in many
cases, the confirmed fiber provider at that home.
And so some of those stats I shared with you, you know, we saw
realtors pull
367,633 broadband, or not just broadband, but property reports
out
of Realtracs in the month of October alone.
And many of those reports featured a TNBA provider as the
confirmed provider.
And so I looked at that, 63,580 of the property reports that
have been pulled from Realtrac since
we turned this on in September have featured a TNBA member
listed as the confirmed certified fiber provider.
And that's just across seven TNBA brands that participate in
Fiber Homes.
So massive, massive exposure.
Carrie Huckeby:
Would you have ever imagined it would be that many when you
started doing that?
Kaleigh Cox:
No, and we have.
So I pulled this out of our dashboard.
Every pro-partner gets a dashboard to view kind of how their
data is being used, how much it's being used, local agents,
things like that. And it like Realtracs alone like kind of
dwarfed all past search
history. I mean, it's just been incredible the reach of that
platform.
So it's a massive win for Tennessee.
Carrie Huckeby:
It is. And when I saw that number, I thought, it blew my mind
that that many people are looking for homes and houses are
looking for listings.
It's just crazy, crazy number.
So if I'm the realtor going into your website allows me to sign
up for an account, I believe.
So I can search addresses, and I can produce a broadband report
for the client, for my client.
Talk about those benefits.
Kaleigh Cox:
Yeah, absolutely.
So the Realtracs reports was talking about, that's the general
property report.
Agents don't have to have Fiber Homes accounts or run separate
reports.
That data is now in the general property report.
But any agent and any state can create a free account on Fiber
Homes.
And we've got some really cool value adds for them that, like we
talked about before, can help them stand out from their
competitors. So they can run, if they search an address either
on the home page or they create their free account and get into
what we call the Pro Portal, they can search and address and run
a separate broadband property report that's branded for them as
the agent, and it features more information than what's in the
one section of the CRS data report.
So they actually get details on speeds and prices.
If the ISP has told us they offer a new mover promo, that shows
up.
There's a website, a phone number, so they can share those
digitally or print them and hand them to their client.
But there's more than just the broadband property report.
For example, if they are the agent listing the home, they can –
and it's one of our Fiber Homes Pro partners has certified the
address – they get access to a whole toolkit of free marketing
materials to help them make the market aware that it's got fiber,
so they can take advantage of that potential 4.9% boost in
value, right?
So they can download designs for door hangers or yard signs or
rack cards.
They can use that kind of thing for open houses, or they can
even just download the certification badge or the QR code and put
that in with photos of the home.
A very easy way to leverage the certification as an agent.
And then all of that is co-branded with the Fiber Homes Pro
partner, the ISP that certified the address.
So they get that kind of easy publicity as well.
So lots of just extra little tools and resources that are free
for agents in there.
Carrie Huckeby:
Yes, that's amazing.
I can remember years ago, many years ago, when I worked in
marketing and sales for a broadband provider.
You know, we tried to figure out how to get those materials in
people's hands that were moving into town.
They were new to the area.
We talked about putting them, putting them in local chambers,
maybe get them to the water department or even the electric
company at that time to hand them out.
Because we were competing with bigger names, and sometimes they
didn't know we existed.
So Fiber Homes is doing exactly that, isn't it?
Kaleigh Cox:
Yes. And that's because DxTel, our company that, you know, owns
Fiber Homes, we've worked with broadband providers for years
now, and we heard so many of our clients, we work with the
marketers.
And we heard so many of our clients say something very much along
the lines of what you just said.
And they were all – many of them, not all of them – but many of
them were kind of kicking the can because there was no obvious
path forward. So that's yeah, exactly what Fiber Homes was built
for.
Because the truth is, you know, people in our industry, I know,
hold a wide range of much more nuanced views on this topic.
But the average home buyer really does just see internet as a
utility, like water or electricity.
And so, you know, they've always expected their real estate
agent to tell them where to go for water and electricity.
And they're now asking agents for where to go for internet and,
you know, agents, up until Fiber Homes, really didn't have
an easy way to answer that question or to answer it accurately.
And so we're just trying to make that much easier for them to
answer your questions with confidence and provide that experience
so that ultimately the home buyer has accurate information
without the ISP having to do the legwork you just described.
Carrie Huckeby:
Right. Because I can also remember years ago getting calls from a
realtor that said, "Hey, someone's looking at this house.
Do you serve this area?" You know, "Do you have internet there?
Do you have service there?" So this certainly makes it easier
for the ISP and the realtor.
So you've probably got at least one good success story.
I know you've got lots of them, but have you got a success story
where all of these pieces came together for someone?
Kaleigh Cox:
Yes, and it's out of Tennessee.
So Twin Lakes has been able to benefit from the Realtracs
integration, but they've also
had 28 agents create those free accounts for access to the extra
tools.
But I went into their dashboard.
Like I said, any of our Pro partners can look at data like this.
But I went into the Twin Lakes dashboard to see exactly what
kind of traction they're getting beyond those 28 agent signups.
In their service areas, in towns that they serve, 2,658 property
reports have been pulled from
Realtracs since September.
We also have an integration on movoto.com, which is one of
those, you know, public facing websites.
22 times potential homebuyers on those sites have clicked out to
see who the internet provider was out of the little widget there,
and that showed them Twin Lakes.
And then they also, Twin Lakes overlaps with another smaller
MLS.
You know, I mentioned Realtracs is the biggest, but there are
600 in the country.
Twin lakes also overlaps with the Upper Cumberland Association
of Realtors, which has its own MLS, which is also integrated with
us. And they've seen another ten agents pull reports there.
So, you know, I think Twin Lakes probably is doing some stuff in
their market to leverage, you know, the tools we've given them to
promote Fiber Homes to their agents because we've seen those
agents creating accounts.
But a lot of that exposure is happening without them having to
do all that legwork again with, like, the chamber or the water
company.
Carrie Huckeby:
And I think, too, and you're right.
I believe Twin Lakes advertised a webinar or maybe a meeting for
their realtors where they could come in and
talk about and learn about Fiber Homes.
So I'm sure it's education is a big part of that.
Kaleigh Cox:
Yeah, absolutely.
And we try to make that really easy for the ISP.
We know that, you know, most of the companies we serve are
smaller, and they can't add this to everything else they're
doing. And so there's two ways we do that.
We run a quarterly webinar.
So once a quarter, it's the same content each quarter.
But we, you know, do a general webinar that any agent in the
country could watch that talks about fiber, explains that
compared to other technologies, and then introduces them to the
free tools in Fiber Homes.
And then we also, you know, we give the ISPs materials to
promote that.
So they can either say, they can just promote it online, and say
here, you know, join this free live stream.
Or they can host, you know, a lunch and learn or something like
that in their office and play it, and then have face-to-face time
as well. And we give them materials to promote it, and then to
hand the agents, you know, in person.
So some people leverage that quarterly webinar, and then other
Pro partners will actually work with Jill, our partner success
manager that's there for them to plan something custom in their
market.
And then the presentation is much more specific to that ISP in
that area.
We do it both ways for free for Fiber Homes Pro partners.
So I'm sure Jill would be able to tell me exactly which one they
did.
But I'm sure Twin Lakes was taking advantage of one of those
options.
Carrie Huckeby:
Good. Great to know that it's out there.
So it is such a great tool, and we've touched on maybe some of
the challenges educating the realtors and getting the
word out there.
Are there any other challenges that you found as far as getting
it out there, or ISPs signing
up or anything else?
Kaleigh Cox:
Yeah. So, you know, I think with broadband providers, most of the
companies, the vast majority of companies that do a demo with us,
either do the full package of Fiber Homes Pro, or they'll do a
slimmed down version we offer where they can simply certify their
addresses. And so just making sure they show up without, you
know, any of the bells and whistles.
And so the vast majority, once they've heard about Fiber Homes,
which can go over in a half hour at most, they want to do one of
those two options.
The challenge is, I think getting them on the call to talk about
it in the first place, because like I said, most of our clients
and the companies we work with are smaller.
They don't have people on house to own this as a full time
thing.
And so they worry that if they sign up for Fiber Homes, they're
going to be putting a bunch of extra to dos on a team that that
already has too much to do.
And so, you know, I'd love to let them know if they're listening
and that has prevented them or anything like that, that we have
way more tools available for ISPs to leverage than any one ISP
is using.
I mean, our goal is to provide you with every option your team
could possibly want in building relationships with agents and
boosting brand awareness with homebuyers.
But no one ISP is using all of them.
It's really meant to meet your team where you are.
And especially if we can work with you to get into the local MLS,
like we did with Realtracs, I mean, it just kind of takes off on
its own from there. But, you know, in the days or months leading
up to an MLS integration, we still have lots of options.
But I never want an ISP to feel like if they can't do
everything, they shouldn't do anything.
And so we try to make that easy.
And you at TNBA, Carrie, have done a great job of helping us,
you know, get the word out about this to your providers, which we
really appreciate. And when you see a bunch of providers close
to each other signing up like we did in Tennessee, that's when we
have the power to go to a big MLS like Realtracs and say, "Hey,
our data.
You want this data.
You know, our data has been certified by all of these
providers." So it's kind of a group effort here in the industry,
and I really appreciate you helping us get the word out.
Carrie Huckeby:
Well, you're welcome because I'm thrilled to see our providers
uploading their certified addresses,
but also going with the Pro package as well, because, you know,
our providers serve about
35% of the state.
And, you know, it's about raising awareness of where we serve,
and the work that we're doing.
And to me, the Fiber Homes just really brings that home, brings
all those pieces together and said, you know, to let everybody
know what's happening in the rural environment.
That you can get these gig/gig connections and ten gig
connections here in the unexpected areas, probably.
Kaleigh Cox:
Yes. Yeah, absolutely.
Carrie Huckeby:
So I guess one of the other challenges, too, as you mentioned, is
the MLS, is getting to the right people to
coordinate and integration, right?
Kaleigh Cox:
Yeah. And if anyone is interested in this, I have a two-pager I
can email them that kind of explains this.
So my email is kcox@dxtel.net.
But at a high level, the way we have
approached this is going up a level.
So there's 600 MLSs right.
But above that, there's only a handful of companies that build
the tech stacks these MLSs use.
The platforms in which they put that data and deliver it to the
agents and to local home buyers.
And so, every time we've had an MLS interested in the last
couple of years we've been doing this, we have built the
integration at that tech stack level, which then immediately
makes it available to every other MLS that uses that tech stack.
So of the 600 MLSs, at least two-thirds, and I think we've built
another since I pulled that stack.
But at least two-thirds could turn on a free integration today.
Like they already are using one of these companies we've
integrated with.
So we've been able to kind of scale very quickly going that way
instead of building one off integrations.
And regardless of what platform they use or what details or
features they want in the integration, we do that
completely free for the MLS.
So the challenge is just letting them know we're not trying to
sell them anything.
And then, you know, still, even with the free option, a lot of
MLSs have to wait for the board to gather, and then they present
it to the board, and the board has to approve it.
And that may only happen once a quarter.
And so even though we offer something that's completely free,
you know, fills a need they undeniably have, it surprises us
sometimes how long it takes to get traction.
And that's why we kind of do this in partnership as much as we
can with an ISP.
If they're part of Fiber Homes Pro.
And Jill will get on with them and say, "Hey, do you guys already
know anyone at the association you know, that could ask the MLS
or ask the board for this?
It obviously means a lot more to them coming from the realtors
they are existing to serve, than it does coming from us, an
outside company." So yeah, lots of considerations there, but I'm
really proud of the progress we've made so far.
Carrie Huckeby:
Yes, I think so.
It's a great tool.
To wrap us up, Kaleigh, tell us about the partnership between
Fiber Homes and Livability.
I think that was something that happened, was that last year or
this year?
Kaleigh Cox:
Oh, time flies.
I think we started that early this year.
But the other day I told someone, yeah, I met with them earlier
this year, and I looked up and the meeting had been August of
2022. So I am not the most reliable person on when things
happen.
But yeah, we were really excited about that.
Livability.com is a platform that does marketing for small to
mid-sized cities.
And so, not the big urban centers, but a lot of the cities kind
of outside of those.
And their website does those lists that often go viral, like
Best Places to Live in America and things like that.
But they help relocation researchers identify places that they
might want to visit or move to or work in that maybe they haven't
heard of before.
And Livability has been around for quite some time, but they had
never had data to feature internet
availability as part of that conversation or those rankings.
And they really wanted to change that, and so that's why they
partnered with us.
And they rolled out what they're calling the Connected Community
Program.
And so providers that have certified addresses in Fiber Homes can
then kind of certify their community, their city, on
Livability, as a Connected Community.
And that means we do a feature story on them.
And then there's a, you know, a Connected Community badge that
goes on the city's page on Livability.
And this has been particularly popular with our municipal
providers that view broadband as very closely tied to their other
goals of economic development and attracting residents.
But we've even seen cooperatives and independent companies use
it because then they can bring this cool value add to their
communities. And then also get some publicity themselves with
these top of funnel leads that might move to their service area
soon, because we obviously do a section about, you know, in our
feature stories about fiber.
That's kind of the story we're telling and who that provider is.
So if any of your listeners want to go to livability.com/
connected-communities,
you can see the stories we're telling there.
And that includes features on Bristol, Martin and Cookeville in
Tennessee.
Carrie Huckeby:
I did check it out.
It is a great website, and I must say, I'm one of those people
that fall for that.
Best places to live, best communities to be in.
You know, I like to read because I want to see if I'm, you know,
if my community is on the list.
Kaleigh Cox:
Yeah, it's a matter of community pride.
Carrie Huckeby:
It is.
Kaleigh Cox:
Absolutely.
Carrie Huckeby:
It is. Well, Kaleigh, I really appreciate your time today talking
about Fiber Homes.
I'm excited that our broadband providers here in Tennessee are
taking advantage of it, and their brand is
showing up, and they're leveraging their networks there.
Is there anything else you'd like to add before we close?
Kaleigh Cox:
I guess just letting people know how they can find me.
I mean, if they go to FiberHomes.com, and they click say, you're
an ISP, you click "ISPs" and you click to book a demo that will
go to my calendar. So if you want to just schedule a call with
me, that's an easy way to do it from the Fiber Homes's site.
I'm very active on LinkedIn, so you can find me there.
Kaleigh Cox, K-A-L-E-I-G-H.
Or as I've shared my email earlier, kcox@dxtel.net.
I'm always happy to answer questions, book a call, or whatever
else might be helpful for our industry.
Carrie Huckeby:
All right. Well, please reach out to Kaleigh and ask her about
Fiber Homes, if you're not participating, great service.
I know our realtors here would love it.
So my guest has been Kaleigh Cox, director of marketing with
DxTel.
You've been listening to Lead Tennessee Radio, produced by the
Tennessee Broadband Association, cooperative and independent
companies connecting our state's rural communities and beyond
with world class broadband.