Jordan Smith joined the show to discuss partnering with another remodeling company to complete a job two hours outside his service area. He discusses the benefits, risks, and challenges associated with the job type and the steps he took to mitigate problems.
Jordan and his wife Veronica started the Smith House Company four years ago to create beautiful and functional spaces that harmonize with their natural surroundings.
Join Jordan, Tim, and Steve as they discuss:
How to handle projects that are outside of the current service area
The risks and benefits of partnering with another remodeling company to complete a job
How to handle the relationships between the design company, build company, and customer
Tim and Steve welcome Doug Horgan to the show to discuss the role of a lead carpenter. Doug talks about his responsibilities, including research, being an internal “help desk,” managing people internally and externally. He also manages scheduling and explains the meaning behind the saying “make ready planning” and why it’s essential for a lead carpenter.
Doug Horgan is Vice President–Best Practices at BOWA, the Washington DC area’s premier custom and remodeling builder. In this training, quality, and troubleshooting role, Doug’s goal is reducing construction defects through sharing knowledge. Doug’s thirty years of tools-on carpentry, warranty troubleshooting, and instruction experience, are the foundations for visually rich presentations on how to build properly and avoid construction problems.
Jesse DeBenedictis joins the Tim Faller show to talk about emotional intelligence. Jesse tells us his definition of emotional intelligence and how he, as a leader, uses it to better his business. He discusses how being self-aware is the most critical piece of emotional intelligence. He also talks about how having good emotional intelligence can help your clients.
Jesse DeBenedictis is the proud owner of Works by Jesse DeBenedictis located in Beverly Massachusetts. He is focused on building long-term relationships with clients and vendors, some of whom he has worked with since the company was founded in 2001. Jesse continues to drive the company to deliver a better higher quality service to their customers.
Tim, Steve, and Jesse talk more about:
How to use emotional intelligence as a business owner
Today on The Tim Faller Show, Aimee Cianfarani discusses how her company has made concierge services (a/k/a handyperson services) a successful part of the overall business. In this high-failure segment of the industry, Aimee and her team have overcome significant odds to find great success by applying a strategic approach and using marketing as a key part of the process. Aimee said hiring the right person for this role is also critical.
Aimee is the Concierge Services Coordinator at Teakwood Builders in Saratoga Springs, NY. Aimee has helped grow Concierge Services from a one-person operation into significant operations with jobs booked into 2023.
Listen to this episode where Aimee, Tim, and Steve talk about:
How to use this to service upsell customers to more significant projects or as a follow-up to other projects to keep them happy
Determining the right customers and employee talent for this service
Season 4 Starts With This Special Episode Recorded Live at The Remodelers Summit!
Listen to this episode and get tips on creating an effective and highly functional relationship between company ownership and the production team. Clark Harris and Eric Bain of Innovative Construction discuss how they have built an open, trusting, and team-based relationship that allows them to work effectively together while creating a culture for innovation, growth, and change.
Innovative Construction is a high-end design firm in Atlanta, GA, with the goal of improving lives through design, craftsmanship, and teamwork. Clark and Eric run their organization with a philosophy of “do it badly and improve.” They do this with a relationship of openness and trust.
Raise your hand if you are a salesperson… Maybe a few business owners raised their hands, but most likely, our production people and our Project managers, Lead carpenters, and Production managers all kept their hands down. Not so fast!
In this episode, we step out of our comfort zone a little and talk about your production teams’ impact on sales and marketing. For this discussion, we bring in an expert in the marketing world who has worked with hundreds of remodelers and home builders all over the country, Spencer Powell.
Spencer is the President of Builder Funnel, a Colorado-based firm that provides sales and marketing services for homebuilders, remodelers & contractors. Spencer earned his Inbound Marketing, HubSpot, and HubSpot Partner Certifications in 2010 and has been practicing and teaching inbound marketing to businesses ever since.
Tim, Steve, and Spencer talk more about:
The impact production has on the Client Experience
The Top 3 things that will create negatives in the clients’ mind
The Top 3 things that create a positive reaction with a client
How the production team can create vital content for the marketing effort
How owners and leaders can get buy-in from the team and show the impact they have on the business
In the interview process, actively listening is key. But how? And how do we change if we “really need someone”? Then, of course, there are all the other times that when we look back at a difficult situation, whether a client or an employee, we see all the signs of the challenge were there, but we did not listen. Guest Christine Miles is here to share some insight and answers on how to avoid that situation.
Christine Miles is the author of What Is It Costing You Not to Listen?: The Power of Understanding to Connect, Influence, Solve & Sell, a professional keynote speaker, consultant, executive coach, thought leader, entrepreneur, and radio show host. She is the founder and CEO of EQuipt. Additional information on her may be obtained here.
Tim, Steve, and Christine talk more about:
The importance of learning to listen
Other situations we can benefit from actively listening
We heard from a few listeners about that episode, and the concept of Zero Punch List, so we wanted to revisit it. We are now evangelists pushing to see the term “Punch list” eliminated from the remodeler’s vocabulary. In a zero punch list scenario, after a project, no items remain to be addressed or “punched” because the items will have been addressed during the project and not at the project’s end.
A punch list is so ingrained within the industry that it is tricky to conceive of not having one. Every blog article about working with a contractor says something about that punch list. Usually, “Don’t pay until it is done.”
Our guest for this episode is Mike Voloschuk, Production Manager at Hurst Design Build Remodel in Westlake, Ohio. Mike is a member of our Roundtables for Production Managers peer group, and when he mentioned how his firm had adopted the Zero Punch strategy, we invited him to join us and discuss it.
Mike has been with Hurst since 2008 and moved from Carpenter to Production Manager.
Tim, Steve, and Mike talk more about:
Background on Hurst Design Build Remodel (size of projects, type of work, etc.).
Why Hurst moved to Zero Punch List production.
How Hurst made the transition and how the team reacted and adapted to the change.
How Hurst is doing with the new production mindset and how the clients have responded.
In this episode, Host Tim Faller shares a process called Pull Planning, and how he thinks it can change the way the residential remodeling world schedules projects. Instead of creating a schedule from start dates, the focus is centered around end dates, and guest Jack Miller is here to talk about how this technical tool can eliminate the huge costs and high stress from production scheduling delays.
Jack started Jack Miller Contractors in 2007 with the vision of a team of highly skilled professionals working together to deliver exceptional projects, a vision which has since come to fruition. He also leads his parish Buildings & Grounds committee and is on the advisory committee to Charles H. McCann Technical School.
Developed and led by our Senior Consultant and “Production Guru,” Tim Faller, this special Roundtables™ Program focuses on all aspects of production management; People Management, Technology, Training & Development, Customer Service and more.
Hitting a schedule every time in construction is possible if you pay proper attention to planning and have a purposeful attitude.
In this episode, April Bettinger joins Tim and Steve to talk about the best practices and the common pitfalls to avoid when creating and managing an on-time project that ends with delighted clients.
April is the founder and owner of Nip Tuck Remodeling in Snohomish, WA. For more than 30 years, she’s carved out a respected niche in the construction industry. Her father was a custom homebuilder, so April grew up watching and learning about excellent customer service, and what it takes to build a high-quality project. April has held key roles in finance, budgeting, customer service, team building, and sales management — preparing her to own and operate her own company. Nip Tuck Remodeling was founded in 2010, with a vision and determination to create a construction company with extraordinary craftsmanship and a focus on professionalism. Nip Tuck was named a Big50 remodeler in 2018, and ranked the No. 50 Fastest Growing Private Company in 2018 by the Puget Sound Business Journal.
April and her estimator create the master schedule, then it’s turned over to the production manager, who is responsible for creating and managing the job schedules on BuilderTrend. One huge factor in staying on track once you’re in production is getting the schedules done and materials ordered a month before the project starts. She talks about why that works, and other aspects of keeping your jobs on schedule, including:
Why the project manager has to create and own the schedule
How to break the details down and work with them
Setting pivotal goals for each week in the schedule
Using goals for client satisfaction
Helping everyone buy in to the system
How much time it takes to pre-plan
Why you should make the time investment
How sales and design affect the schedule
Handling change orders in the schedule
Getting clients to think ahead during selections
Building in reasonable wiggle room
Leaving nothing TBD
Handling design changes and heading them off
Beating weather challenges in the schedule
How to deal with damaged materials
And more …
If you believe you can hit project schedules, you can. If you think it will never happen, it won’t. It’s all about the attitude.
See April Speak at the Annual Remodeler’s Summit
We’re thrilled that April Bettinger will be speaking at the 2019 Remodeler’s Summit, on September 24-25, in Orlando:
To learn more the Summit event and our line-up of other great speakers, go to Remodelerssummit.com!
