GuildQuality

Treehugger’s Lloyd Alter published a glowing review of Abe Kruger and Carl Seville’s new book, Green Building: Principles & Practices in Residential Construction. As it so happens, we were giving away two autographed copies of this great book as part of our Best Examples of Green Building Contest. NOTE: The deadline for entries is Valentine’s Day!

From Alter’s review:

Every year when I start my class teaching sustainable design at Ryerson School of Interior Design, I explain that there is no textbook for the course, because nobody has written one that is any good in a field that is changing daily. Next year I will have to qualify that; when it comes to green building, there is now. It’s written by Abe Kruger and Carl Seville, AKA the Green Building Curmugeon, and it is very, very good at what it does….

…if everybody building [houses] read this book and followed its best practices, the results would be a lot more energy efficient, a lot healthier, and would last a lot longer. It is more than a textbook for students; everyone in the industry could learn from this. I did.

The complete review is here.

Guildmember since 2010, Customs Kitchens recently tied for grand prize at the San Francisco Bay Chapter of National Association of the Remodeling Industry’s annual awards for its complete renovation of a Bay Street home on Alameda’s Gold Coast.

The project, completed in 2010, also won a first-place award for historical preservation of a residence. The company also won a merit award in the category of residential interior renovation costing more than $100,000 for a Piedmont home.

For Custom Kitchens owners, Jerry and Joy Wilkins, restoring an entire home in their own town was an opportunity of a lifetime. Check out these articles for the full story on the award winning California home renovation:

Longtime Telegraph Avenue remodeler taker Berkeley Architectural Heritage award

Alamdea company brings older home back to its former glory

I think I’ve shared this before, but after searching for it in preparation for my IBS talk next week, I realized I hadn’t posted it anywhere here on our blog. Below is an excellent infographic describing the relationship between reviews and local search, from local search optimization company 540|SEO.

Timber Frame Business Council, a nonprofit organization providing information and resources for the timber frame industry, featured GQ and Guildmembers Lancaster County Timber Frames in their weekly update today. Thanks for the mention TFBC!

How is your company using GuildQuality to measure success and customer satisfaction?

Congratulations to Guildmembers Normandy Remodeling for winning 12 out of 15 NARI Remodeling Excellence Awards.

The 12 awards represent the work of eight different Normandy Designers; Jennifer Runner, Ann Stockard, Leslie Lawrence, Gary Cerek, Stephanie Bryant, Kathryn O’Donovan, John Long and Leslie Lee.

Normandy Remodeling has been providing award winning kitchens, baths, renovations and additions to Chicago area clients for over 30 years. Normandy is known for great service, high ethical standards and exceptional quality of work. Their dedication to their clients has previously earned them the title of Remodeler of the Year by Professional Remodeler Magazine, as well as the distinction of a GuildQuality Guildmaster Award in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011.

Read more on their win here!

Yesterday, Fox News published a short story highlighting some of the unique aspects of building a software company in the South. The article featured comments from Pardot CEO David Cummings, bigWebApps CEO Patrick Clements, and me. I thought I’d take a moment to elaborate on a subtle point from the article, and what that means for our Guildmembers.

There’s a prevailing sense among Atlanta’s tech entrepreneurs that our businesses should earn a profit by creating value for clients. I suspect that this whacky notion is, at least in part, a product of the lack of a robust venture capital community in the South. By necessity, we have been forced to reject the notion that venture capital will play a roll in the early success of our business.

Around here, there are only a few ways to get your software company off the ground, and all of them require achieving positive net income as soon as possible. For software-as-a-service businesses like ours, net income requires recurring revenue. Recurring revenue requires an excellent offering and happy customers. And those require great people who are focused on creating something special. This chain creates a virtuous cycle that benefits everyone involved.

An interesting (and often unhealthy) dynamic emerges when one attempts to finance the growth of his or her business by some means other than profit. From whence comes the cash, goes the attention. This is the Silicon Valley paradigm, and under it, any person who might facilitate or profit from an investment or acquisition becomes the de facto customer. This is good news for lawyers, bankers, and pretty much anyone who makes a living by seeing businesses bought or sold. Unfortunately, this distraction draws the business’ attention away from the actual customers: you.

When a business focuses on something other than delivering value to actual customers, there are consequences. We’ve experienced what happens in our world of real estate and construction when, instead of focusing on creating livable homes and communities, we focused on facilitating the flip. Remember what happened when all the real estate brokers, appraisers, lenders, legislators, architects, remodelers, builders, and buyers all started thinking that homes were no longer something that you lived in, but instead they became something from which you could earn a fee for facilitating a transaction?

Because that pain is very fresh in our minds, we’re going to stay focused on generating profit by creating value for you — our Guildmembers. Y’all are the good folks who keep our lights on, and we’re grateful for your business!

FastCompany describes the Power of Circles:

As business owners, we’re often living out on our own insular Tahiti. Rarely do we have the opportunity to ask questions of other folks who have walked a mile in our shoes. Small, trusted, intentional networks help temper that challenge.

I circle up with my Entrepreneurs Organization “Forum” every month. I also get together once a quarter with a handful of Atlanta SaaS entrepreneurs. Among our Guildmembers, Remodelers Advantage is extremely popular. As are the NAHB’s 20Clubs.

Are you a member of a “circle”?

How do Degnan Design Builders, Inc. and Creative Contracting Inc. keep their customers satisfied? By maximizing client feedback using GuildQuality! Check out the Professional Remodeler interview with both company owners here:

The Home Builders Association of Illinois held its Installation and Awards Banquet this week in which it chose Scott Sevon, GMR, GMB, CGP, CGR, CAPS, partner with MAW Chicago as Remodeler of the Year with HBAI. Sevon is also on the advisory board with Qualified Remodeler magazine.

“I feel very grateful to be voted the best in the state! Although this award singled me out, it is our firm’s award. MAW Chicago, our team of employees and trade partners make this award possible,” he says. “As my partner, Mike Nagel, CGR,CAPS, and I believe, we try to give back to this great industry. We each stay involved at the local, state and national levels of our HBAs. This gives us an edge over most in our industry because we are current on rules, regulations, requirements and the pulse of our industry.” Read more here.

MAW Chicago, a construction company specializing in residential and commercial interior and exterior design and renovation has been a GuildQuality member since June 2011. Congratulations Scott and MAW team!

GuildQuality member, LEFKO Renovations, earned a mention in the December issue of Fortune! Owner, David Lefkovits shares his secret to successful marketing in the latest Fortune Venture column.

LEFKO Renovations is a family owned residential renovation and remodeling company and a sister company of the LEFKO Group, a real estate development, general contracting and investments company co-founded by David.

In addition to David’s leadership at LEFKO, he is also a partner of Custom Building Group, a builder of luxury homes in Metro Atlanta. Congratulations David and LEFKO team!

GuildQuality member 1-800-HANSONS was recently named National Contractor of the Year by Replacement Contractor Magazine, a publication that recognizes the top window, siding and roofing contractors in the United States.

“We work very hard to provide our customers with the best products and service before and after the sale. In this industry it’s all about trust and we work very hard at earning and keeping the trust of our clients,” states owner and President Brian Elias.

Congratulations 1-800-HANSONS!

Even the best businesses get negative reviews. The trick is utilizing that feedback constructively to help your business grow. Negative reviews can be an ideal platform for you to demonstrate just how much you care about your customers. Yelp’s blog for business owners recently posted a video specifically about the positive side of negative reviews, take a look.

Many of our GuildQuality members leverage their customer feedback to strengthen their brand through our survey process which presents a great opportunity to let customers share more information. Their published comments find their way into consumer rating services like Google Places, and with the addition of GuildQuality Reviews, more robust, useful, informative commentary will make its way throughout the web. Don’t shy away from reviews! Encourage your customers and open the door to valuable commentary.

Forbes just picked up a story about I’On that was published by MarketUrbanism a few years ago. Real estate development is difficult, and politics make it more so. An excerpt from the original MarketUrbanism post:

It is important to recognize that our society has politicized property rights and democratized land use to the point that most re-zonings now involve a political campaign. Even with great built examples such as the historic area of Charleston and the Old Village of Mt. Pleasant, one should not make the naïve mistake of assuming that citizens or their elected leaders will understand the concept after hearing a lecture or reading a few articles on Traditional Neighborhood Development. Some may take years to understand the concept, while others may never understand it. And there are some who feel that accepting the design principles of TND involves an admission that what has been built over the last 50 years was a mistake. They may be unable or unwilling to make such an admission. Also, one should not assume that if a politician or appointed board member likes a project or thinks it is “the right thing to do” they will necessarily support it in a public forum. Few are those who possess the political will or guts to stand up to an angry room full of NIMBYs, or a well-connected citizen.

It is extraordinarily difficult to win such a political campaign in most areas of the country for several reasons: (1) Prior to World War II people were excited about growth. Their expectations were that what was built would be beautiful and contribute to their quality of life. However, the overall quality of the built environment of the last 50 years has been poor. This makes people distrustful of anything new, and gives rise to a legitimate belief that anything new will, by association with most of what has been built over the last 50 years, will necessarily be bad; (2) the private/exclusive mindset embodied in the suburban mentality (which has spread to many urban areas) leads people to believe that any more development will degrade their privacy and exclusivity; and (3) it is in the best short-term economic interests of existing property owners because limiting supply of new homes, puts upward pressure on existing home prices.

I’ve mentioned I’On a few times in our own blog. Visit our website here. Also, this Forbes post may help to explain why I occasionally rant about how the political and regulatory process is destroying the building profession.

December 7 Update: Steve Kendrick just pointed out to me that the house in the background is an I’On custom home built by Mount Pleasant builder & remodeler, and long-time Guildmember, Structures Building Company!

Calculated Risk reports that Redfin is bringing more transparency to the real estate brokerage industry.

Listings are as much advertisements for brokers’ services as they are advertisements for available homes, so it’s easy for the layperson to assume that a bunch of signs equals a bunch of sales. Redfin aims to eliminate this confusion by showing agents’ actual production data.

While there are plenty of worthy exceptions out there (an excellent agent is an invaluable resource) the real estate brokerage community has largely attempted to preserve it’s value by controlling the keys to the information castle. In contrast, the best agents out there have embraced service, innovation and professionalism as the path toward success. Their success, coupled with resources like Redfin, Zillow, and Craigslist, is compelling the rest of the industry to either follow them or find another job.

What other changes would you like to see in real estate brokerage?

Qualified Remodeler, in partnership with RenovationExperts, published its annual review of customer satisfaction trends from among clients who found their remodeler via the RenovationExperts website. In general, customer satisfaction is up relative to last year’s study. Ken Betz covered the study and also shared a bunch of my comments on some of the trends they saw. Among them:

I think people are more demanding, but I also believe the profession as a whole is rising to the occasion with more professionalism. To say it another way, I think it’s much harder for bad companies to stay in business today than it was five years ago.