Good With Remodeling Details? This iPad May Be for You

Greetings from a rainy Saturday. I come bearing good news for remodeling and design pros:

If you're still eyeing Apple's new iPad -- or want another one for a member of your staff -- take a few minutes to enter the October Snapshots contest on daily5REMODEL: "It's All in the Details." The sponsor is Crown Point Cabinetry, which also sponsored the Old Home Renovations contest in July.

The prize for the winner is an iPad 2.

As always, entering the contest on d5R is simple and free:

• Assemble up to three great “after” photos of one of your company's best construction details. This can be a porch, a built-in, columns or brackets, a staircase, a historic restoration -- whatever you'd like to showcase.
• Include a brief narrative indicating the project location and challenges, the age and style of the home, and why you’re proud of this particular detail. Provide a contact name at your company and your website address.
• Email the photos and narrative directly to me (leah@daily5REMODEL). Type "It's All in the Details" in the subject line.
• We'll feature entries throughout October in the Snapshots section of d5R, and then hold an open vote to select the winner in early November. We'll also help you promote your entry to your clients and community.

Thanks to Crown Point Cabinetry for this generous sponsorship. That's their Linea System shown in the photo.

Send me your detail shots! Have a fantastic weekend.
By the way: Voting is now open for the September contest! Click here to vote.



P.S. Speaking of details, learn about Crown Point Cabinetry's Remodeler Appreciation Program. "Their quality is outstanding, but that's the starting point," said a remodeler on d5R.

A Great Opportunity for Remodelers with Team Spirit

Happy Labor Day!

I hope your summer has been as much fun as mine. After taking off most of August for travel and R&R, I look forward to resuming daily5REMODEL's regular publishing schedule on Tuesday.

To that end, it's high time I announce the September contest in d5R:

Team Spirit!

 

The prize:

 

A seat at an upcoming "Master Your Remodeling Business" workshop, hosted by Remodelers Advantage. (Choose either San Francisco, November 17-18, or Baltimore, January 24-25.) This hands-on workshop brings together remodeling business owners and key managers for two intensive days focused on building and sustaining a strong, consistently profitable business. Learn more here.

 

The value:

 

Priceless, of course, but the regular price is $520. This includes meals, welcome reception, presentations by top industry strategists, unlimited networking with remodeling peers from the U.S. and Canada, and terrific take-home gifts. Does not include airfare or hotel.

 

Eligibility:

 

Any remodeling business of any size whose team works together exceptionally well, gets lots of kudos from clients, and has processes and systems that run extra smoothly. You do not have to be a member of Remodelers Advantage to enter. No purchase necessary.

 

How to enter:

 

Email a photo or two of your team, along with a list of who is shown and a brief explanation of what makes your team one of the best in the remodeling industry. Send this package as soon as possible to leah@daily5REMODEL.com. In the subject line, write "team spirit!"

 

Selection process:

 

Space permitting, all eligible entries will be featured in the d5R Snapshots section throughout September. At the end of the month, we'll hold a popular vote for the best team. We will help you promote your entry through a special "featured on d5R" button that links directly to your entry. 

 

Please submit your entry as soon as possible. 

 

I've been fortunate enough to be a guest at several Remodelers Advantage events, and I'm always dazzled by the energy, intelligence and incredible sense of community. The Master Your Remodeling Business workshop will change your business and your life for the better. 

 

Best wishes for a healthy and successful fall.

Leah Thayer
leah@daily5REMODEL
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How the iPad Was Won: an Old House Story

In our most competitive contest ever on daily5REMODEL, the prize in July was an iPad 2. The subject? Old Home Renovations. The winner, after a seven-day voting marathon that brought 2,952 votes and ended only this afternoon, was this remodel and small addition in Wilmette, Ill., by Blank & Baker Construction Management.

Thanks to the sponsor, Crown Point Cabinetry, and to the dozens of remodelers who shared the stories of some of the old homes they've helped to restore. 

I asked Chad Blankenbaker how he rallied his supporters behind his project. His answer is below.  -- Leah Thayer, editor

Very exciting. I can't believe we won, I was just happy you chose our project to be one of the featured projects.
 

I don't think I did anything revolutionary, it just seemed to gather momentum on its own.

So I started off by posting it on both my personal and business facebook pages as well as RemodelCrazy.

Then I sent out an email to all my friends and family. Next thing I know I started to get emails back from everyone saying they voted and that they forwarded the email to their friends and coworkers. I never asked them to do that but it was flattering.

So then I started sending it out to all my vendors and subcontractors and I got the same response. People were excited for us and wanted to help.

Then after much contemplating, I decided to send it out to all my past clients, past prospects that didn't materialize, to current clients, to prospective clients, to architects that I've worked with and the response was overwhelming. 

Even all these people were passing it on to their friends and coworkers and some of them cc'd me on the comments they were posting along with my email something along the lines of this is the contractor that did the work to our (enter project here) and he is the greatest blah blah blah. To my surprise those emails resulted in two leads for projects I need to go and look at so that was a huge bonus.

Then to wrap it up, I then posted it on LinkedIn and Twitter as well.

So it was nothing that required much work. I think the reason the email campaign worked so well was because for one I was asking for help. I think generally people like to help people if you ask for it and it doesn't take much effort. I've been asked many times before to vote for things online and I usually will but once in a while you get the request for a vote that requires you to sign up on a website and give out personal information and I hate voting for those things so I think you voting system that makes it so easy for people to vote helps a lot. 

I spelled that out in my email how easy it was to vote, just 2 clicks of the mouse! is what I said. People like that. I also had many people email to tell me they voted using their computers, cell phones, ipads, etc...so for these people to be able to easily get onto the website using their mobile devices helped a lot I'm sure.

Anyway, I think that's about it. Thank you so much for letting me be a part of it. It forced me to reach out to a lot of past contacts and ask for help, something I've never been comfortable doing before and it felt good to get such a supportive response in return.

Near Santa Barbara, a Home Performance "Horror" No More

Music to a parent's ears:

"Dad, it's warm in my room!"

We hosted a fun contest on daily5REMODEL in June called Home Performance Horrors. Sponsored by the Building Performance Institute, its goal was to show how skilled home-performance auditors and contractors are solving all manner of problems in homes related to health, air quality, efficiency, safety, comfort and more.

The winning entry came from Allen Associates, in Santa Barbara, Calif., with this account of a young family struggling with comfort issues and indoor allergies in their Craftsman-style home.

Wrote Lucas Johnson of Allen Associates:

"Everything looked well maintained (landscaping, building exterior, interior design, etc.). That is, until we started exploring behind the walls and in the attic.... 

"The furnace was more than 25 years old, in horrible condition (with cracks in the heat exchanger) and connected to extremely leaky ductwork, which was wrapped in asbestos insulation.... 

"Lastly, the attic had dirty and poorly installed insulation on the attic floor, insulation entirely missing from the knee walls, and a significant amount of air leakage through can lights, bath fans, Solatubes and framing interfaces."

That was the "before," of course.

Click here to read the story. Congratulations to Allen Associates for winning the $550 BPI certification exam, and thanks to everyone who entered.

You can see all entries here, along with entries for the many other contests we've held on d5R, including the current Old Home Renovations contest.

Delighting Clients, Winning the "Kitchen Sync"

We ran a little contest last week on d5R, asking remodelers to share how they deliver on what are arguably the three top priorities held by most remodeling clients:

• good communication
• a clean jobsite
• an on-time schedule

The remodeler with the best answer would win a copy of Kelly's Kitchen Sync, just published by kitchen designer and remodeling blogger extraordinaire Kelly Morisseau. (Here's my interview with Kelly from early June.)

Kelly reviewed all the answers last night and selected her favorite. Correction: her favorites. From her email to me:

Everyone had such great answers and all come from such positions of strength in their companies that it was tough! I loved that everyone stressed the importance of a clean jobsite, and how some followed up after the projects were over, which is important. I liked the personal touch with the owners thanking clients for their business and staying in touch. 

I eventually narrowed it down to two of the comments, so they will each get a copy of the book: 

CA309 Jane Regan with this line: "We have one point of contact to support the client in the office, and one point of contact on the job." 

If the line of communication is not clearly set out, then the client might mention something important to a trade or a crew member which could be missed, or worse, the message could become garbled as it is passed through the multiple chains of command. I've found that clients feel better knowing that the message they're passing along is in the hands of those overseeing the project, rather than those who don't have the same overview. 

CA1452 Phil Vanderloo - "...regular meetings throughout the project to address any concerns, and most important of all-LISTEN!" 

Even though we're all good at maintaining clearly defined scopes of work that all of our trades and company are set up for, sometimes clients have concerns that might not even need to actually be addressed. They do, however, need to be HEARD and sometimes simply truly listening, and/or responding (sometimes not always necessary) can go a long way.

Click here to read the full discussion, including the rest of the answers from Jane, Phil and others. Thanks, everyone -- and enjoy your books, Jane and Phil!