Management
Management
How to Create a World-Class Remodeling Team
Great remodeling companies position themselves for the future with the right players
Management
Everyone Should Have a Number: KPIs for Your Design Build Team
Measuring key performance indicators guides your team to success while creating accountability and ownership
Management
How to Revamp Your Pre-Construction Process
Experiencing too much slippage and delays? See how Bridget Bacon of Red House Design Build solved these issues by improving the remodeler's pre-construction process
Women at WIRC
How This Remodeler Revamped Their Pre-Construction Process
Bridget Bacon of Red House Design Build outlines how she helped transform the pre-construction process for improved finances and morale
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Remodel Redux
It's tough enough to remodel a kitchen built in the 20th century, but try working on one that's gone through three centuries of updating. That was the challenge put to HomeTech Renovations Inc. of Lansdale, Pa. Originally a three-story log cabin built in 1722, the Del Viscio's center hall colonial in nearby Villanova had seen a number of renovations through the centuries, including a plaster-co...
Jobsite Safety
Words to Live By Remodeling contractors should understand the following terms as used in OSHA regulations: Competent person means one who is capable of identifying existing and predictable hazards in the surroundings or working conditions that are unsanitary, hazardous or dangerous to employees, and who has authorization to take prompt corrective measures to eliminate them.
The Production Machine
Tim Lassiter, owner of 8-year-old design/build firm Houston Remodeling, runs a low-overhead, low-headcount business that employs just himself, a salesperson and an office manager. Yet the company typically has seven or eight projects, usually large additions, in progress simultaneously. With few in-house bodies to throw at an emergency, advance planning and elimination of predictable emergencie...
Ashes and Opportunity
Cooks become careless in the kitchen; old electrical wiring arcs; wildfires burn out of control. The result is the same: Home fires that can devastate the lives of the residents. Home fire property damage totaled nearly $6 billion in 2003 not including the Southern California wildfires, according to the National Fire Protection Association.
Hiring a Salesperson
Help wanted. Familiarity with residential remodeling required. Excellent compensation. Successful candidates must: In remodeling, you might expect a new salesperson to produce $600,000 dollars in volume in the first year. Ultimately this salesperson could sell $1.5 million annually, depending on the type of products and services offered.
Operation Co-op
Every remodeler knows that having a healthy relationship with the customer is the most important element to the long-term success of their business. That's why I was very surprised to learn that so many remodelers have little or no relationship with the building product manufacturers that could and should be the second-most important priority to them.
Building Team Communication
To achieve excellence within our companies' cultures, leaders must work hard at keeping healthy relationships. Our communication skills must be a strength, not a weakness. It takes time, energy and effort, but it pays big returns by producing better results and deeply enriched relationships. It's a double win.
Getting the Most Out of Microsoft
Think back to when you started your business. One of the first things you did was to develop a set of basic forms, contracts and letterhead. These sales lead forms, customer surveys, proposal templates, invoices and purchase orders have been reused hundreds, if not thousands, of times. They have become not only an essential part of how you conduct business but also the basis for one of your mos...
Making Sausage
Part 8 of a Series on Benchmarking Last month we talked about the first three steps in setting a gross profit target. Now comes the part where we run the numbers from steps one, two and three through the grinder.
Downtown Rising
From Minneapolis to Memphis, Tenn.; Philadelphia to Phoenix; and Evanston, Ill. to Evansville, Ind., cities are developing expansive plans to bring more housing to downtowns and urban centers, bolstered by a growing crop of candidates for whom condo, loft or apartment living makes good sense. David A.