This Delaware remodeler has diversified his business by providing customized space plans and estimating services for health facilities.. More
Like many company owners, Susan Pierce often has trouble finding quality employees. “I was spending so many hours and dollars advertising, reviewing rÈsumÈs, making phone calls, interviewing, and checking references, I couldn't get my regular work done,” says Pierce, owner of Commonwealth Home Remodelers in Vienna, Va. Plus, many of the hires simply weren't right for the job. More
Small service-oriented businesses do it. Large product manufacturers do it. And upscale remodeling companies should be doing it, too. It's a strategy known as “reinvesting profits,” and it's something all growing companies should be thinking about ó or risk stunting their own growth. More
Riggs Construction didn't act quickly enough to terminate a difficult executive and so subjected its entire staff to his toxic attitude for five damaging years. By contrast, a criminal background check that is part of the meticulous hiring process at Rockland Inc. prevented the company from putting a convicted sex offender in clients' homes. More
Upscale remodels must be picture-perfect the day clients move back into their space. Anything sub-par ófrom landscaping to lighting ó will downgrade client satisfaction and endanger the possibility of repeat business. “If an owner gets a bad landscape job, it's the last thing they remember about the whole project,” says Mark Peterson, president of M/A Peterson. More
Have you outgrown your home office? It's a sign that the time has come to move out of your home office when you keep being woken at dawn by workers knocking on your bedroom window. Habitually drifting into the office in your pajamas is another red flag, as are subcontractors casually interrupting family meals to get a signature or to pick up a check. More
Self-described remodeling neophytes Susan Parker and Ed Hynes “lived to rue the day” they almost hired another contractor instead of Greg Antonioli. The Boston-area couple, a college professor and a library director, had a substantial project in mind when they interviewed a remodeler we'll call Roger, as well as Antonioli, president of Out of the Woods Construction and Woodworking, a $1.5 million design/build firm in Arlington, Mass. More
