The latest news from GuildQuality.

In March, I’On (a 700+ home TND in Mt. Pleasant, SC) will celebrate the 10-year anniversary of its zoning approval. I’ve had the great fortune to have been a part of its development since the early days of our rezoning process.

GuildQuality grew out of the development team’s early work with the neighborhood’s building program, the I’On Guild. In our effort to build the highest quality neighborhood we could, we recruited the highest quality builders we could find. As the neighborhood progressed, customer satisfaction emerged as one of our primary measures of quality.

The success of the neighborhood is in large part a result of the I’On Guild’s ability to deliver an exceptional customer experience together with our shared vision for building a beautiful community. Untold others have contributed as well — from our early prescient homebuyers to hundreds of industry professionals, and some passionate and dedicated organizations that helped us through our rezoning.

The efforts of the entire team have earned the community recognition from smart growth circles, praise within the New Urbanism community, accolades from the broader real estate development industry, and even its very own wikipedia page.

UPDATE: Open Invitation to the Shin Dig Celebration on March 10.

UPDATE: (Mar 5) A nice brief history from the Charleston Regional Business Journal.

Steve Kendrick, owner of Structures Building Company, enjoyed some nice coverage in Professional Builder. The article focuses on his family’s new home in I’On, and the challenges they faced with their narrow lot and their need to accomodate their growing family.

The article also offers a good description of the quality of life in I’On. Steve has been building and living in I’On for most of the neighborhood’s 10 years.

Both Buffington Homes of Charleston, SC and Gradison Buidling of Indianapolis, IN recently received significant awards for their work.

Buffington Homes won its 5th consecutive Best of American Living Award, announced at the 2007 International Builders Show. They won Gold for a home they built on Sullivans Island, SC. In addition to this honor, Dan Buffington, president of Buffington Homes, was recently named a Top Custom Home Builder President of 2006 by Home Builder Executive magazine.

Mark Gradison of Gradison Building was recently named Builder of the Year by the Builders Association of Greater Indianapolis (BAGI). This annual award is given to a builder who has returned significant time and service to the residential building industry and has worked diligently on behalf of other association members.

We’re proud that GuildQuality members continue to set the bar. Congratulations to everyone at Buffington and Gradison!

Once slated for demolition, but thankfully saved by the local historic preservation board, this graceful 1909 bungalow’s restoration was recently finished by PSG Construction in Orlando, FL. An article in the online edition of Remodeling Magazine retraces the footsteps leading to a new life for this house, now perfectly fit for the modern family.

Stephen Gidus, a partner in PSG along with his brother Paul, relays PSG’s vision: “Had we simply restored it to its original design, it would have been a nice house. But it would not have allowed us to showcase the possibilities of bringing the house up to today’s standards.” After two years, the house now has a 2-story extension added to the back of the house, a full-height basement, a detached garage complete with an upstairs apartment, and a 66-foot sightline from the front door to the back of the house.

The NAHB selected PSG Construction to present this project at the International Builders Show in 2007 at part of The Renewed American Home project. This is the first restored/renovated home to be presented in the 25 year history of The New American Home program.

Congratulations to the team at PSG!

For the 18th consecutive year, the S.J. Janis Company, a full-service design-build firm in Wauwatosa, WI, won an award at the Milwaukee/NARI-sponsored Wisconsin Remodeler of the Year Awards presented on January 19, 2007. They were recognized in the following categories:

• Residential Kitchen $60,000 - $100,000 - Bronze Award
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• Residential Bath over $60,000 - Silver Award
• Lower Level over $50,000 - Silver Award
• Residential Addition $100,000 - $250,000 - Bronze Award
• Residential Historical Renovation/Restoration - Silver Award
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• Overall Marketing Campaign - Silver Award
  

Congratulations to the team at S.J. Janis!

A couple of months ago, Rob Faraj (GQ’s VP of Engineering) forwarded me an excellent article from Nisan Gabbay on viral marketing for web businesses. The article proposes some requirements for a web business to be an “over-night success”–or more plainly stated, “attract millions of monthly unique visitors in less than two years time.” Gabbay asserts that many of the big web successes of recent years have been “viral” services, “where each new user must involve friends to derive personal value from the service.”

While GuildQuality’s members don’t need to involve other building professionals to “derive personal value” from our service, the value we bring to each of our members certainly increases the more builders, remodelers, and real estate developers there are contributing to our database of customer satisfaction information. So the article was a nice reminder of some of the reasons I started GQ in the first place, and it resulted in the re-launch of our Build the Guild program.

It also got me thinking about how building professionals market themselves. Some of our folks have been preparing for a presentation on the relationship between customer satisfaction, value, brand, and sales. The more we discussed the relationship, the more I began to appreciate that those that deliver an exceptional customer experience are inadvertantly marketing themselves in much the same way as viral web businesses like YouTube or Flickr: Customers want to share with other customers the experience they had with XYZ Homebuilders.

But, while the building industry may have been doing this for decades, the big-brained folks at YouTube and Flickr still have something to teach us: They’ve made it EASY to share. In fact, sharing that experience is part-and-parcel to the customer’s transaction. For example, I post a picture to Flickr, I add a description so I can easily find it again, and I invite a few friends and family members to check it out. Next thing you know, my friends are using Flickr and sharing their photos, etc, etc.

So here’s my question for you: What are you doing to make it EASY for your customers to share with others the positive experiences they’ve had with your business?