When M/I Homes' land VPs got together for a national meeting, they all agreed that they had an opportunity to improve. Every division sourced and tracked land its own way, reporting didn't line up, and everyone wanted more speed and accuracy in their processes. So instead of picking a tool for the team, Valerie Mangum, Director of ERP at M/I Homes, handed them the pen and asked them to write their requirements. The result? The team went from spending 80% of their time looking for land, to 80% of their time actively working land deals. 

We sat down with Valerie, Prophetic Founder and CEO Oliver Alexander, and Director of Client Services Rich Mesmer to unpack how it happened. 

By the numbers:

• $1.17B in annual land spend
• 125 requirements written by the people who'd actually use the system
• 17 divisions trained on-site in under 30 days
• 170 users across the organization
• 100%+ Prophetic use daily in key divisions

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‍Watch the full webinar here.

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‍Here's what we learned. 

1. Let the people doing the work tell you what they need. M/I Homes leadership  formed a committee of six land leaders, each paired with all 17 local divisions so everyone had a voice. Valerie facilitated the conversations but didn't vote. She asked one question, what do you need in order to do your job better? The list came back at 125 requirements. 

"If you ask people what they want, they're gonna tell you. So that's where we started." 

2. Pick the solution that's ready now, not the one that's allegedly "coming." When the team asked each potential vendor if they were able to meet a requirement, the vendor was able to select yes, no, or coming soon (the requirements were weighted by importance). Over a six-month evaluation, some vendors kept promising features that never shipped. 

"Prophetic came in and pretty much wowed the team because a lot of the answers were yes we already have that or it was coming very soon. Some other vendors, no names, said it's coming… It's coming…”

3. Keep the price out of the committee room. The committee never saw pricing. Valerie runs every software committee this way, so the decision rests on what helps people do the job, and financial conversations and negotiations happen after. 

"We didn’t reveal pricing to the committee because we wanted them to choose the software that they actually wanted to use and would use. We didn’t want the choice to be based on price."

4. You're buying an outcome, not software. M/I Homes spent about $1.17 billion on land in 2025. Against that, one extra off-market land acquisition per division per year changes the math fast. For Valerie, the outcome comes down to where her teams spend their time: "Now I can spend my time vetting, not hunting." 

When asked whether she'd pick Prophetic again, even if there were lower priced options: "Yes and yes. Absolutely."

5. Make the boring decisions before anyone logs in. The rollout was fast partly thanks to the team committing to preparation: three or four committee meetings, 60 to 90 minutes each. The committee agreed on pipeline stages, a shared tag library, and required tasks, then "stacked hands" to commit to it. That shared setup is why M/I Homes can now report across all 17 divisions the same way. "

6. Launch with a strong foundation, then refine. M/I went live with just two required pipeline tasks. Divisions have since asked for more, which is exactly what Valerie planned for. Getting Prophetic into people's hands and giving them an immediate advantage mattered more than getting every detail perfect on day one. 

"We moved pretty quickly knowing that we would come back and refine."

7. Opt for on-site training for enterprise deployment. Instead of 17 separate trainings, divisions were grouped into seven on-site sessions, all completed in under 30 days. Logins were ready at the door. Ninety minutes of core training, then teams worked live on their own deals. For many, it was the first time they'd met their peers from other divisions. 

“Our corporation is all about getting the right tools into the hands of the people that need them.”

8. After signing is where you really feel the value of partnership. Valerie had her own training plan ready because she assumed the vendor would disappear after launch. Instead, the Prophetic team still meets monthly with every division. Those check-ins add context the dashboard can't: falling search counts can mean a team found its targets and is now calling owners. 

"I thought, oh, they're just gonna train our first set of people. We're not gonna see them again. But that didn't happen."

“Everyone at Prophetic was instrumental in getting us to where we are. It was a very good partnership, and continues to be a very good partnership. Prophetic doesn't walk away at the contract signing.” 

9. Position this investment as an advantage for the team, not a replacement. Land teams often spend about 80% of their time on legwork and 20% talking to landowners. The goal is to flip that, because the landowner conversation is something AI can't do. Corporate visibility is a byproduct, not the point. 

"This initiative was to give you the tools you need to do your job better. That's what it was."

10. Shared data turns dead deals into new pipeline. In land, a "no" usually means "not right now," and that history shouldn't leave when people do. In Tampa, a long-running assemblage deal fell through. An M/I teammate ran a SearchAI™ query, found a two-parcel assemblage owned across different LLCs, and reached a family member already thinking about selling. 

"The deal was really exciting, it came out of thin air. Actually it didn't come out of thin air, it came out of SearchAI."

In summary, pick the solution that solves the problems that you care about. Don’t make purchasing decisions on price alone if you want your teams to actually use it – you are buying outcomes, not software. 

And lastly, pick a vendor that treats you as a partner. 

M/I's teams get support tickets answered in under two hours on average, and live chat in under four minutes. 

When one division's single map layer request turned into 27 future land use maps, half of which had to be digitized, the Prophetic team worked through it until all of them were done. 

"We've always felt connected, and that it was a strong partnership and supported," Valerie said. "It's delivering what we expected. Maybe more, because the product has even changed."

There's a lot more in the full conversation, including a live walkthrough of the executive dashboard and Valerie's advice for builders with 50-100 divisions. 

Watch the full webinar, or book a demo to see what Prophetic can do in your market.