How Good is Good?
I had a great time watching the Masters over the weekend - I think all golfers get some joy out of watching the worlds best struggle against a course like the rest of us usually do. With the winner shooting one-over par for the tournament, one commentator perceptively noted that par is largely an arbitrary number, because the quality of one score really only depends on what everyone else is shooting.
In a similar vein, builder and remodelers should use industry benchmarking as a key component in assessing performance. Just as a score in a competitive round of golf, or understanding a written passage, requires an appreciation of context, so performance data should not be analyzed in a vacuum.
Our reporting systems allows members to compare their performance against a customized peer group based upon company profile (ie. remodeler, custom builder, or volume builder), geographic area, annual volume, and price range. In the screenshot above, the top bar represents a single company’s average performance score in each category, while the bottom bar represents the peer group average. To the right of these graphs is a percentile ranking, which tells you the percentage of your peer group that you’re outperforming. We can also set up peer groups of companies that belong to specific groups such as Remodelers Advantage or a Builder 20 group.
If you want to know how well you’re really doing, understanding where you stand against your competition is a good place to start.