My Remodeling Story: Creating a Remarkable Remodeling Experience from Day 1

Kyle: I say it all the time. Remodelers need to know their numbers. Not at the end of the year when your accountant tells you how you did. Right now, on every job. That's how you protect your profit. Pay yourself what you deserve and keep more of your hard earned money in the bank. Or you could buy a boat and stuff with it. Job tread. Job tread makes that possible. It's one of the reasons why I'm such a big fan of what they've built. JobTread gives you real time job costing. Estimating and financials all in one place so you always know where you stand. Check it out at jobtread.com. Greetings, everybody. Welcome to the Remodelers on the Rise Show. I do appreciate you all being regular listeners, or if this is your first time listening, I'm glad you found it. Sometimes the podcast is unique in that if I create a piece of content in our Remodelers community, RemodelersCommunity.com, you get instant kind of feedback. If I'm doing coaching, if I'm doing an in-person event, there's this pretty consistent feedback that you get. To see what's resonating or not. The podcast is in interviews that you know sometimes we hear from the listeners. It's a little quieter. so if you are getting a lot from the podcast, feel free to leave a review on whatever podcast app you're using, or shoot me a note, Kyle at remodelersontherize.com. Let me know what's resonating with you. If you have a topic idea, if you have somebody you'd like me to interview. I stand by, ready for that. Now, today I happen to be working from home today, and that is because we have an electrician coming at 9:30. It's currently nine o'clock. We will see if he arrives on time. We have a inspector coming between the 11 and 1 o'clock window. What's going on at your house, Kyle? we also have a separate from what I'm about to talk about, a HVAC guy coming. The reason that those first two things are happening is. Is we are remodeling our primary, we are remodeling our master bathroom. It is something that when we moved into the house we're in about five years ago, that bathroom was straight out of 1997. It was all white. the cabinet had a little bit of the paint kind of chipping off. My wife, I think, passive aggressively, I guess you could say, maybe kind of was batting at that of like, look, honey. There's more paint that fell off. I don't know how that happened. But it was due. It was due. And we we saved up over the last couple years and have been excited to go into this whole process. So we're in the construction phase right now. What I wanted to record a podcast on is what I've learned about the design and development process and the early parts of the process with demo, etc., from my own vantage point. It's always unique when you go through the process yourself to just kind of feel the feelings and how you respond to certain things. And I thought I shared some of these points with one of our peer groups last week, and I thought it'd be a good podcast. What it should induce in you are some ideas that you either need to double down on, you need to communicate more clearly on. Or reminders for you of what exactly your clients are actually feeling as they go through the process. In other words, it should heighten your ability to give your clients a remarkable remodeling experience. The better we navigate our clients through the process from start to finish, the more they're going to remark about us, the more they're going to want to refer us, come back to us with repeat work. It makes marketing easier when we're giving our clients a wonderful experience. Another put another way, advertising is the price you pay for not being remarkable. The more remarkable you are, the more projects are gonna come to us. Caveat. That does not mean we don't have a kick butt take names advertising and marketing plan, but you get my drift. Everything gets easier when we give them a wonderful experience. So I'm gonna go through I've got a good number of these. I'm just gonna go kind of go random rapid fire through them. In the hopes that you're able to grab on to one of these things. So we went with a longtime client of mine. It was names Renovations Unlimited here in Michigan. the owner Ed reached out to me, it's probably been six plus years ago. Time flies. It may, it may be eight or nine at this point. but he actually searched business coach Brighton, Michigan, unbeknownst to him. The greatest business coach in Brighton, Michigan for remodelers lives right right here. Now, did you hear what I said? I didn't call myself the greatest remodeling business coach ever. I said I'm the greatest remodeling business coach who lives in Brighton, Michigan. And I apologize if I insulted any other remodeling business coaches in Brighton. I did not mean that. but I'm the GOAT of remodeler business coaches living on Winfield Drive in Brighton. Okay. long time longtime clients worked with them, know their business really well, know their process really well, because I because frankly I I helped them develop it over the years. And as we my wife and I did at our previous house, we remodeled our basement, we added a bedroom, but this was probably a a bigger project than anything we've ever done before. And one of the first things in my mind was finding a designer in a remodeler, but in particular the designer that I thought my wife would connect with. And I had worked with Kara at Renovations Unlimited for a number of years, and I thought Sarah's gonna like Sarah's gonna like Kara. And they do like each other quite a bit. I also figured out they both went to a Brandy Carlisle concert at Meadowbrook Theater a few weeks ago. And I told Sarah that. I said, Hey, Cara was at that concert that you and your sister went to, and she goes, that just solidifies her appreciation and enjoyment of working with Cara. So We we got involved in this process. One one thing, I did set aside a certain amount of money with the caveat and knowing this is the second time I've used the word caveat. We'll see if I keep using it. I rarely use that word. with the thought that, well, we'll see as we start to make selections. I think we'll probably end up on the higher end range of this. The early parts of the process were really helpful. I told Renovations Unlimited to just treat me like any other client, and and they've and they've done that. And It was good to have that initial phone call. Cara asked a lot of questions. She didn't pull out a blank sheet of paper. She has a process and a series of questions she walked through. She came out to the home, and that's when Sarah first first met her. And she's taking some measurements and also just asking a lot of questions. There was a lot of question asking and a lot of listening. we went through kind of each element of the space. Are we wanting to move this? How do you feel about that? Sarah was able to give some thoughts. And I think Car was taking some notes of the type of thing that and style that Sarah liked. You're hearing, you're hearing that my wife is the one making the decisions as far as the design elements go. When it comes to the financial side, I'm very much interested in that. Sarah's limited interest, and vice versa. Or vice versa. I think it's vice versa, but some people say vice versa, and always cracks me up when I do when they say that. And I bite my tongue to make sure I don't correct them and embarrass them. Because that's just rude. And we don't need rudeness. We don't need more rudeness in life. The other thing that Kara had us do is take some examples. Sarah went on Pinterest and just grabbed a bunch of examples. Frankly, she'd already been saving them over the last few years and sent those to Kara. So Kara had a little bit of a palette of what we were wanting this to look like. After that, so that was a that was a fun meeting. Kara showed up on time, I think a theme in all of our meetings with Renovations Unlimited. Is when they say they're going to be there at a certain time, they always have been up to the minute. Keep that in mind, Remodeler. If you're running a few minutes late, don't shrug that off. Call and let them know. Or just start to make it a point of showing up a few minutes early so that you knock on that door or you ring that doorbell right on time. That matters. That matters. We had a meeting where Cara had put together just some initial. kind of design ideas and an initial budget range. That budget range gave me some reassurance of going, okay, we're within the ballpark of what I was thinking. I know from just working with a lot of remodelers over the years that most likely as we choose things, we're going to end up on the higher end of that range. But it gave me a lot of confidence to move forward in the next step, which was to sign the design and project development agreement and write a check for that. actually I didn't write a check. They did it through their their they use builder trend, as a matter of fact. And they did it right through there. So I did the ACH for the design development fee. But it gave me a lot of confidence of going, okay, I'm confident and comfortable in the range. A lot of the projects that you are working with your clients on, you are able to give that ballpark range. And just from my experience, it was really helpful for me to write that design development check, knowing that there's been some decent thought. That went into that side of things. all right. the other thing was we were very excited. We were very excited for the first in-person meeting at our house. and when we went to their showroom to review just some initial design side of things, we were both quite excited about it. And that's important for you to realize this is day in and day out for you. Match your client's excitement or help elevate their level of excitement. All right. I'm gonna go through the rest of my list now that I've set everything up. I mentioned one person often has a strong opinion on design and layout, and often one person has a stronger opinion on the financial side. Fish that out, remodeler. Pay attention to that, get a feel for that, and make sure you're talking to the right person on certain things. if Cara started asking me design-related stuff, she wouldn't be a very good salesperson because I think if she's paying attention, she would quickly realize that Sarah has a lot of opinions on. What we wanted to do in that, and that I was perfectly okay with letting Sarah lead the charge on that. I chimed in, I chimed in, but it was kind of 90%, 10%. And on the financial side, it's the direct opposite. So fish that out, remodeler. another item the enjoyment of seeing the first design concepts was very real. Very real. Put some good time and energy into those initial design concepts. Explain them. Tell me what we can we can tweak. Cara ended up using some AI tools for that. And you know, everything wasn't perfectly to scale, but we were fine with that. It gave us a good feel for what the palette looked like, how it was going to be laid out, and the speed at which you can get those design concepts in front of the client, the speedier the better. I was excited to not have to wait weeks and weeks for that initial design concept. So keep that in mind. Yes, overall time kills deals, but also if we put a lot of time in between each step in the design development process, we end up losing some of that energy we have. So continue to work on that. One other side note on that: pay attention to your design and development and estimating capacity. As a remodeler, I think you a lot of you take your production. Once a project gets into production, you take your capacity. On the production in the field side, pretty seriously, you know that if you start and open up a new project, when you have these other three still in progress, you know that the ripple effect of that is going to be negative or that you're going to be hustling your face off. You pay close attention to that. Now, on the design development side, I think a lot of times we don't pay attention to the capacity there. All of a sudden, we have four projects in design development. And instead of saying, hey, We can start this project on this week. We end up kind of tossing it in there. Now all of a sudden things get even more delayed than they were before. So keep paying attention to your capacity on the design development side of things. All right. Another item. I'm on number four. I mean, I've mentioned a bunch of them, but I have 19 things listed. I'm on number four. I'm just gonna start listing them out and we'll wrap it fast. Number four, it's very easy to get overwhelmed with options. From the homeowner standpoint, there's just a treasure trove of decisions we have related to tile, countertops, et cetera. As a designer and remodeler, most of the time you can guide your client more than you realize. So you're the expert, you've done this many, many times. Obviously, give them room to select cool things, give them room. To get a feel for what they're looking for, but also guide them a little bit. Make sure you're breaking it down one at a time. There was a a time during the process when we were looking at tubs. We're doing a standalone tub. We took out a big old jacuzzi tub and we're doing a standalone tub there. And I was sitting in the meeting, it was at their showroom. Cara was going through different options. we were looking at the different depth. Sarah wanted something with a little bit of depth so she could fully submerge in the tub. And I was getting a little bored, frankly. I'm like, can't we just like decide this later? Can't we just move on to the next thing here? Cara, can't you just send me some? I was thinking all of this. Can't you just send me some options? But we stuck with it for another eight minutes or so. And at the end of that, we were very satisfied with finding the correct tub. Cara said, okay, yes, I think that's the one. And it only came because we were looking at some different options and digging into the details. Grabbing one thing at a time and moving it towards or to completion, which equals selection, was a really helpful thing that Carl led us through. So break it down one thing at a time, take your time moving through selections, and then reassure your client when they make selections. Let them know, this is gonna look great. This is this matches up with the design very, very well. Obviously, don't lie to them. If it's gonna look hideous, you can tell them that as well. But reassure them a little bit because I think people get a little gun shy of making a selection that I'm gonna be stuck with for the next 30 years. so reassure them and direct them and guide them. Number five, upfront selections add to the workload up front, but make everything else more streamlined for everybody. man, as we go through design and project development, the fact that we had pretty much, I say pretty much, we have Everything selected weeks, frankly, about a month and a half before the project started. It takes a lot of hard work to get all of those selections made. But as I was sitting there kind of thinking about the project a couple weeks before demo day was, I was just really comfortable going, there's not a lot of room for change orders. There's not a lot of question marks on this project. We literally have selected everything that's sitting in their storage area with our name on it. All of the materials are there, and it really reduced some of the stress and worry from the client standpoint, let alone streamlining the entire process for the remodeler. So keep fighting for the upfront selections. the sixth one. The time delay between the initial concepts and the updated design and scope of work was too long. I know Kara and Ed are listening to this. what's Kyle gonna say? He's only said great things so far. Well, it took a while. We did the initial design concepts, and then Kara said, hey, it might have been three. I'll get I'll say three weeks. I think it might have been four. But it was three weeks out before we were gonna get the updated design concepts. Now, I know that Kara has a pr had a pretty full load. I know that their other designer, Dana, was out on maternity leave. I got that. But I was also a little bit of, it's gonna take a while to. Get that back. It was a little bit of an energy kill. So going back to what we talked about earlier, anything we can do to keep projects moving keeps that energy up. Number seven, the detailed scope of work and the number of questions and decisions asked made me very confident that the project would go smoothly. The only thing I was a little worried about is once we opened up the walls, is there some rot over there by that shower because there was that little water damage from years ago? that was really the only thing I was concerned about. Now I now I'm starting to get concerned a little bit because we had decided not to extend the tile into our walk-in closet area that's inside the inside the bathroom. We're gonna redo the carpet in our actual bat bedroom and we're just gonna recarpet the closet. And then when my wife and father in law were walking the job over the weekend after Calvin's 15th birthday party, holy crap, Calvin's 15. Time flies, people. Time flies. The days, the days are long with kids. The years are short. Make sure you're setting aside time. Time flies. But they were doing that walkthrough. I'm going, crap, this, I'm smelling a change order. I'm smelling a change order. so other than that, everything else was very, very clear. So keep working hard to get into the detailed scope of work and questions and selections. Number eight, I appreciate the clear payment schedule. It was very clear of when payments were to happen. I really like the convenience of doing it via ACH. I did have a little bit of a two-day delay where I forgot that I needed to make a payment on the day of demo. And what I did with all of the funds for this is moved it into a high yield savings account. And it takes a couple days to move it back into the our main checking account that we were gonna use. but but be really clear with your payment schedule. Clients are Usually kind of eager to make the payments. They're happy to make the payments. remind them, just let them know, hey, just a reminder, here's kind of the payment schedule. So you can plan this out. Now that we've started, here's what to expect. Get that back in front of them. I know the payment schedule was on the contract, but I would have to kind of dig to find that. So don't be shy about being proactive with explaining the payment schedule again and laying that out for your clients. Number nine, small updates on where we're at in the process was really uplifting. As an example, we signed the agreement and then we had about three months before the project was gonna start, which which ended up working out pretty well because our daughter went off to college. My wife and I moved into that room. More on that in a second. And when the tub came in, Ed took a picture of it and said, the tub looks amazing. And I immediately took that and sent that over to Sarah. So here we are in the lull of we've signed the the pro the contract. You know, the project's still a ways away from starting, but it was really kind of an uplifting, energizing. that's coming up. that's cool. so small updates, especially in that time from contract signing till you start the project. Update your client on any little thing that happens. Kara did the same thing when these the faucets came in. Sarah selected these quirky little handled gold faucets, and Kara said, These look so cool, they just came in. So keep that going. in that kind of dead space between contract and start. Number 10, keep your communication short and brief the best you can. Yes, designed emails are fine and they're good, but it's amazing how I just want to kind of get when I'm when I get a communication on an update, I just kind of wanted the facts. Just a quick, just quick facts. So continue to evaluate your communication with clients. Try to make it personal and short. brief the best you can keep the energy up. Number 11, I really value the pre-construction meeting on site. I think we were starting on a Monday, and it was either like Wednesday or Thursday the week before. Ed, the owner and Matt, the project manager came out. just talked about where we're gonna they actually brought the tool trailer, where we're gonna do the the dump trailer, talked about garage access, talked about bathroom, just walked through the project. They really laid out what to expect the first week. Talked about dust prevention. It was just really nice to have that in the rear view mirror already kind of planned before the project started. So remodeler listening to this pre-construction meetings. Take the time to do that. It's excellent for hitting the ground running when Monday comes and when job start comes, and also very good for the client as well. All right. We're cruising right along. I have a handful more. Is this helpful? I think this might be helpful. It's a little bit of just a what I've learned and observed by going through the design development process all the way through kind of the start of the project and demo day. number 12 of 19, and then we're gonna cruise through these. Move moving everything out of the bathroom and bedroom induced feistiness. Sarah and I waited till the last minute. It took longer than we thought. We used the opportunity to clean out our drawers and get some bags of clothes to donate to Salvation Army. And here we are, nine o'clock the night before, a little bit tired and going. So help your client tell them, you know, a few weeks in advance, hey, you might want to start the process here. Dot dot dot. Number 13, we move from a king bed to a double bed. I was excited. I'm like, we're gonna get to cuddle just like when we were newlyweds in that little double bed we had before we moved to that king-size bed, and I hardly ever see you. in bed anymore. You're so far over on the other side. The double bed's not working, folks. It's not working. We're bumping into each other. Neither one of us are sleeping well. So what we've kind of done is I brought a little futon mattress in and I put that next to the bed. and I say, Good night, Sarah, I love you. Good night, roommate. See you in the morning. And then I have to push my my little bed underneath the bed in the morning so that she can access the closet in the guest bedroom. the the inconveniences. King to double. Let the client know there's gonna be inconveniences. Make sure they are aware of that. Number 14, I like their true tool and dumpster setup. they've got just a really nice tool setup. So they don't they they haven't gone the van route or whatnot. They just have a really nice tool trailer that's pretty convenient out there. They've got a rolling dumpster that they just pick up and take back and forth. I think that does a nice job of protecting the driveway and adds for some flexibility. a really nice setup. Number 15, Sarah was feeling the day of. Yes, she came down and she's like, you're about to tear into my house. And Ed was there the first day, the two demo guys came, and Ed was like, Sarah, it's gonna be wonderful. We have this under control. It's going to be great. Just that encouragement and that reassurance went a long way. Four more. Number sixteen, I was really eager to see progress on the first day. So I got here, made sure everything was going well, hobnob with the guys a little bit, and then they started the process. About noon that day, I only had like a little 30-minute window between coaching calls, and I'm like, I just Just want to go home. I just want to go home and see and see where they're at. Your client's gonna be eager to see progress, especially those first couple days. I ended up running home, sticking my nose in there. How you doing, boys? and it was amazing how much demo had already taken place. But just sending a little photo or doing an early half halfway through the day, daily log would be welcome on day one because I was pretty excited to see that progress. number 17. They did a really good job of dust protection and protecting floors, ramboards down. All of your efforts that go into that really, really matter. And they did a they've done a really nice job with that. we did comment, Sarah commented a couple days in, I think at the end of day two, she said, Wow, dust is amazing. She did not say that affectionately. it was just, it's amazing how it travels. It's amazing how it travels. but they did a really good job of dust protection. Number 18, I really appreciated them sweeping up at the end of the first day. Just the the in and outs, stuff was everywhere. They did a really nice job of sweeping up and cleaning up really well at the end of the first day. And I noted that that really mattered to me. and then number 19 showed up this morning. this was day one and day two. Eight o'clock hit on the on the clock, and bam, there's the call, there's the doorbell ringing. really appreciated them showing up right on time. The whole morning routine for us has been flipped on its head. Generally speaking, Sarah's able to kind of have a leisurely morning. Now all of a sudden she's waking up earlier, needing to get ready before, you know, readying and like ready, ready before eight. It's amazing how the project has really changed our morning routine. Renovation Unlimited does a really nice job also. The the night before the end of the day, the work day, the night before. They send an email out to let you know what's happening the next day. And I think on the third day, demo was done, and Wednesday last week was just a quiet day. And we were both like, okay, good. Just a normal kind of morning routine. And then plumber came, rough plumbing on Thursday and Friday. We've got electrician coming, we got rough plumbing inspection today. Things are cruising. So I share all of that to give you some reminders and to emphasize some things that from the client standpoint. I really appreciated. Before you move on to your next thing, take a minute. What one or two or three of those items resonated with you? Jot it down. Add it to your next team meeting agenda. Add it to a note, send a quick note to your designer to discuss an idea or two here. Add it to your production team meeting coming up. And make sure that as you hear a good idea like this, grab a hold of it. So that you can do something with it. That's why you're listening to this, not so that you can be entertained by yours truly, which I hope you get entertained a little bit. Sometimes I worry when somebody's like, I listen to your podcast all the time. I'm like, crap, I think I use the same jokes kind of over and over. And they probably roll their eyes a lot. So I'm working on new material. Like even today, I use the word and using new words like caveat. Caveat. All right, folks. It is time for you to go conquer the rest of your day. It's time for me to greet the electrician who should be arriving here shortly. Go out and be a remodeler on the rise. That means you're continually making incremental improvements in all areas of the business. You got this. You can do it. Go tack it. You've probably heard a lot about AI lately. I've been liking saying it like that. I think it's funny. AI lately. Here's something practical. Related to AI. Jobtread has always been one of the most innovative tools in the remodeling space, and their new AI connector is a great example of that. It lets you bring AI directly into your business data. You get answers faster, surface job information without digging through records, and cut down on the repetitive stuff that eats up your day. If you want to see what AI actually looks like inside a remodeling business, go to jobtread.com.

Kyle Hunt: Thanks for tuning into the Remodelers on the Rise show. Whether you're listening or watching, I appreciate you being here. If this was helpful, make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss the next one. We're putting out new episodes every single week focused on helping you build a better remodeling business with real stories, practical ideas, and things you can actually take and use. If you're on YouTube, hit that like button and turn on notifications so you know when new episodes drop. If you're listening on a podcast app, a five-star review goes a long way and helps more remodelers find the show. We've got great links below or in the show notes where you can connect with us, check out our remodelers community and learn more about our coaching and resources. Appreciate you very much. See you on the next episode.