GuildQuality

2/1/2012 Update: To clarify, this contest is open to Guildmembers & non-members alike, homebuilders & remodelers, architects & developers, commercial contractors & residential contractors, etc. Unfortunately, if you are a Rhode Islander or a Québécois, or if you live outside of North America, then you are ineligible. My apologies.

The contest: GuildQuality will feature pictures and brief descriptions of our readers’ best green building projects here on our website, and readers will vote on their favorites.

How to enter: Before February 15, email marketing at guildquality dot com at least one and as many as nine pictures of your company’s best green building project, along with a 50 to 200 word description of the project.

Voting: On February 15th, we’ll post all of the candidates’ projects, their pictures, and descriptions, and call for a vote! On March 1, we’ll declare the winner. (We’re actually building our own little polling widget specifically for this vote.)

Fortune and glory for the winner: Glory will find the winner in the form of a feature here at GuildQuality.com, along with a special Green Building Reader’s Choice Award logo for use on the winner’s website or in print. As for the fortune…

…the winner of our contest will receive a copy of Green Building: Principles and Practices in Residential Construction, a comprehensive new guidebook (it weighs 3lbs!), authored by Atlanta’s own Abe Kruger and Carl Seville. We’ll give a second autographed copy to a randomly selected person who cast their vote for one of the winners.

Lingguang Song, Ph.D, of the Department of Construction Management at University of Houston offered this review of Green Building:

According to my knowledge, this book is the most comprehensive treatment on the subject of green building in residential construction. It achieves an excellent balance between principles and real-world practice. The “best practice” approach (i.e. integrating of green principles with existing design/construction practices) as well as the attention to construction issues are excellent. The book is not only valuable for college faculty and students in architecture, engineering, landscape, interior design and construction, but also as a reference for industry practitioners (owners/buyers, architects, engineers, contractors, and building department officials etc.)

So enter today! To recap:

1) Email your entry to marketing at guildquality dot com before February 15;

2) Include at least one and as many as nine pictures of the project;

3) Include a 50 to 200 word description of the work.

GuildQuality will join Southern Living magazine to kick-off the 19th year of the Southern Living Custom Builder Program on February 24th and 25th at Wild Dunes Resort, just outside of Charleston, South Carolina.

The Southern Living Custom Builder Program is a network of the South’s top custom home builders brought together by the magazine. Members of this one-of-a-kind program enjoy the benefits of being connected to the Southern Living brand, exclusive territory rights, Showcase Home opportunities, and much, much more.

Southern Living is actively looking for new members to attend the conference, please contact Kristen Bryan at 205-445-5076 or kristen_bryan@timeinc.com by February 3rd for more information.

We are thrilled to sponsor this year’s Replacement Contractor Executive Conference powered by Replacement Contractor. This year’s conference is being held February 23–24, 2012 in Las Vegas.

In addition to hearing from industry experts and learning from other professional contractors from around the country, this year’s conference will feature the Replacement Contractor Service Excellence Awards Dinner conducted by GuildQuality and sponsored by James Hardie.

All replacement contractors who register for the conference before December 30, 2011 are eligible for the Replacement Contractor Service Excellence Awards. As a Guildmember, you are automatically eligible for the awards with your registration prior to December 30, 2011. Those companies ranking highest will be presented with the Service Excellence Award.

Registration for the conference is $495 for Guildmembers—a significant savings off the $695 regular registration rate. Click here to register, and be sure to check “Sponsor Guest” as your registration type.

We look forward to seeing you in Las Vegas!

The friendly people on the NAHB Education team have invited me to the IBS in Orlando to give a talk about social media and the emerging reputation economy. The talk is on February 8 from 10 to 11:30 and it’s entitled “Social Media and the Custom Home Builder.”

Here’s how their positioning it on the official IBS site:

Description: People are talking about your company on the Web — sharing feedback with friends, neighbors and even strangers. At the same time, potential buyers are searching for and reading these comments in order to make informed decisions about who to hire and who to buy from. You can choose to ignore the discussion, be a part of it, or better yet, ENCOURAGE and LEAD it. In this session, you’ll get an eye-opening look at how custom builders and remodelers are successfully using LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to engage with their customers. You’ll also get proven tips and strategies for using the emerging role of social media in facilitating consumer purchasing decisions to attract new business.

Learning Outcomes:

Understand how to incorporate the prominent social networks into your overall marketing and communications strategy.

Learn sure-fire ways to ‘syndicate’ your message across all the major social media platforms.

Get insights into simple, effective and often free ways to use social media to strengthen your reputation and increase awareness of your company.

Know exactly how to get started with Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to improve your engagement with buyers, influencers and allies.

We’re sponsoring the November daily5Remodel snapshots contest!

Here’s how it works:

Send a paragraph about one of your favorite remodeling clients: what they’re like, why they’re your favorites and what sort of projects you have done for them. People like pictures, so if you have pics of your happy clients (with or without you and/or your project team), be sure to include them!

Send all asap to leah@daily5REMODEL.com. In the subject line, type “Our Favorite Clients.” No purchase necessary to enter.

After candidates’ entries are posted, d5R readers will then vote for their favorite. The entry with the most votes will win a White 16G iPad 2.

We recently organized a day-long roundtable for some of Atlanta’s SaaS businesses.

There’s a vibrant startup community in Atlanta, and we’re pleased to be a part of it. But the majority of the discussion revolves around issues facing aspiring entrepreneurs, pre-revenue businesses, or businesses seeking investment. While that sort of conversation is interesting and often helpful, it’s generally not all that relevant to people who have an established SaaS businesses and are focused on accelerating growth, refining product, and improving service.

That was the motivation behind organizing our day-long roundtable. Our objective was to create a platform for established SaaS businesses to share experiences with similar, non-competing businesses. Our friends at Tourbuzz helped us put it together, and for the first Atlanta SaaS Day, we were joined by the founders and executives of three other great companies: Berke Assessment, bigWebApps, and SecureHealthPay.

We had such a productive time together that we’ve scheduled a 2nd Atlanta SaaS Day for December 15. At the end of this post, I’ll share more about that as well as how we might expand to include addition companies, but first, for those who might be interested, here’s how we put together the event, and what we covered during the day.

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I am pleased to announce the call for entries for the 2012 Guildmaster Awards. The Guildmaster Awards recognize exemplary customer service among our membership of quality-minded builders, remodelers, developers, and contractors.

The call for entries will close on January 15, 2012, and we will announce all the winners on or about May 1, 2012.

As in prior years, members who survey all of their customers (see the detailed qualifications for allowed exceptions), achieve a recommendation rate of greater than 90%, and have a high survey response rate will qualify to win an award. I urge you to read the complete details here.

The application page for the 2012 Guildmaster Awards is in the Marketing section of your account. Click here to apply.

We’re working with the good folks at TourBuzz to organize a roundtable for Atlanta-area Software-as-a-service companies on October 20. This will be an event for owners and operators of growth-oriented SAAS companies with at least $250k in TTM revenue (most of the those signed up so far are north of $1M).

Here’s the application form, and read on for more details. (more…)

We’ve recently formed a relationship with the National Association of Professionally Accredited Contractors.  NAPAC is a remodeling and home improvement industry association providing contractors with compliance tools, legal and operational seminars, expert white papers, best practices guides, and developing news.

We met NAPAC’s executive team back in February at the Replacement Contractor conference in San Antonio, and we find their mission to be well aligned with GuildQuality’s — “to elevate the stature of the building profession to a level commensurate with its importance.”

By joining NAPAC, GuildQuality members receive 24/7 access to a growing database of information available at www.napac.net. On the site, you can purchase legal documents such as customer contracts (backed by a $50,000.00 guarantee), independent contractor agreements, and customer payment demand letters.  Members also receive the NAPAC Report, which provides industry news.

GuildQuality members save $100 off the purchase price of your first annual NAPAC membership by using coupon code GUILD100 where indicated in your shopping cart.

Click here to learn more and join NAPAC.

Remodelers Advantage has a Master Your Remodeling Workshop in Baltimore, June 21 – 22. I’ve heard great things about these workshops, so when I spotted this in the RA newsletter, I thought it was worth sharing:

If you find yourself up at night worrying about your business, it’s time to take action and create a solid plan for success. What are your issues? Generating leads? Selling business against low-priced competitors? Knowing how to adjust your business to avoid losing money? Being able to pay yourself enough to support your family? These are exactly the kinds of challenges we discuss at this lively, high energy workshop.

So take action today and join Remodelers Advantage and 50 of your peers for two days of strategizing, learning, sharing and networking with top industry consultants like Linda Case, Victoria Downing, Paul Winans, Judith Miller, Tim Faller and more. You’ll leave with a set of actions that will help you immediately increase control, efficiency, productivity and profits!

It’s coming up soon so register today! Click here to learn more.

If you are attending the Housing Leadership Summit next week, check out the following people on the agenda (PDF):

John Wieland is a panelist in a “wide-open roundtable discussion of the major issues facing the home building industry today, including how the spring selling season panned out, how the rest of the year looks, and how companies are prepared to make the most out of 2011.”

Stanley Martin Homes CEO Steve Alloy is among three “chief executives from the nation’s largest home building companies [who] will reveal how they have prepared their companies to seize the future. Find out how they have changed organizational structures, fine-tuned balance sheets, adjusted operations, re-crafted marketing and advertising plans, and altered the homes they build to make the most out of what promises to be a very tough 2011 market.”

Marianne Cusato & Carson Looney, two friends from the real estate development side of my career, will “discuss strategies for designing homes that buyers want to buy. [That sure sounds like a good idea!] In some cases, that may mean tweaking existing homes to meet today’s realities. In others, it means starting from scratch to develop a new breed of homes that matches the aspirations of today’s buyers—young and old.”

Jonathan Smoke “takes a look backward and forward, tracing the history and future of industry consolidation. Will big companies, with easier access to capital, come to dominate the marketplace again? Are there markets that the biggest companies are more likely to target than others?”

And for those who are into fortune telling or astrology, Moody’s economist Mark Zandi will be presenting another forecast. For context, you may enjoy reviewing some of his predictions from the recent past.

The GuildQuality Guildmaster Awards celebrate exceptional customer service in the building industry. This year (our 6th year) we are excited to recognize 155 home builders, remodelers, contractors, and real estate developers for their history of exemplary service.

To identify the award winners, we reviewed thousands of survey responses from their customers. Following are a few representative comments pulled from the customer feedback of this year’s winners:

Our experience with Windsong Properties was extraordinary and welcoming. It always felt like home every time we came out to visit even before we purchased our home.

I am grateful for the patience, expertise and professionalism – and kindness – of the entire team at McClurg. They made a challenging process (remodel in the dead of winter!) as pleasant as possible. And my new room is just what I’d hoped for, a beautiful space that completes my home.

From the moment we started this process with Carissa to finding the perfect floor plan to working with Daphne through the mortgage process and John with construction and ending with Ian we have had the best experience. Quadrant knows how to ensure a smooth process and keep the customer in the loop. We have been blessed to be part of this team and look forward to many years of enjoyment in our new home.

We were thrilled with both projects that we did with Sean Perry and group. We were impressed with the professionalism and detail oriented aspect of the group right from the start through the finished products. We just love our kitchen remodel and the extension of our deck, and do not have a single regret with the process or the result.

Of the 2011 Guildmasters’ 18,000+ survey respondents, more than 95% would recommend their builder, remodeler, or developer to a friend — an astounding accomplishment that places these companies among the healthiest and most enduring of building and remodeling businesses. Congratulations to the 2011 Guildmaster Award Winners!

To learn about this year’s Guildmaster Award Qualifications, visit the qualifications page of our website or contact us with any questions.

Atlanta Guildmembers: Please join us for lunch at Ansley Golf Club on April 12 from 11:45 to 1:15.

We’ll be giving a brief presentation about GuildQuality’s latest happenings, along with our plans for the near future. We are especially interested in hearing your feedback about GuildQuality, our services, and how we can better serve you.

Please RSVP (using the form below) by April 7. Also, we’d like to keep the event reasonably intimate, so we encourage you to bring up to three additional people from your company. Thanks for being a part of our community of quality-minded home builders, remodelers, and real estate developers. We hope to see you very soon.

P.S. This event is for our members, but we welcome any building, remodeling, and real estate companies in the Atlanta-area who are considering GuildQuality.

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Earlier this month, we sponsored the inaugural Replacement Contractor Service Excellence Award, which was given out at the Replacement Contractor Executive Conference held in San Antonio, Texas.

Conference registrants were invited to participate in the award.  For those who opted in, we asked each company to provide their full client list from 2010.  We then surveyed a representative sample of their clients using our e-mail, telephone, and mail surveying process.  The survey questions covered the full experience in working with the contractor, spanning the sales and service experience, quality of workmanship and products used, and (ultimately) would they recommend the contractor to a friend.

The participants were evaluated across all questions surveyed, with particular weight given to the response rate and recommendation rate. Working collaboratively with the editors at Hanley Wood, we then selected three winners from two different categories – those with more than $10 million or more in revenue for 2010, and those with under $10 million in revenue for 2010.  We were pleased to announce the winners alongside our partners, Hanley Wood and James Hardie.

It is worthy of noting that all of the participants posted high scores, averaging a 73% response rate and a 93% recommendation rate.

The full list of all six winners are listed below:

$10 million in revenue or above for 2010

• Thompson Creek
• Newpro
• System Pavers

Under $10 million in revenue for 2010

• Twin Cities Siding Professionals
• Franzoso Contracting
• Southwest Exteriors

Here is a photo taken that evening.  Congratulations to the winners!

In our Newsletter from January, you’ll find our Q4 Member Prediction Report, tips on how to get the most out of your membership  a great feature about a miniature castle built in South Carolina and more.

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