Blog Archives




 

  • Top 5 Outdoor Living Design Elements to Make Your Garden Extraordinary
    By Kathy Richardson - Wednesday May 9, 2012
    Taking an ordinary garden to extraordinary is rooted in the details. Here is a list of five design elements to consider when creating your own unique outdoor space to help you weed through the many options. Natives. What if you could have beautiful plants, ideally suited for your planting region that require little to no maintenance at all? You can. It is called nativescaping. Native plants are evolved to grow in your region’s weather conditions, which means that once they are established they don’t need watering and require very little maintenance. Many native plants tend to be larger and not as showy as their ornamental cultivars but they are tough, long lasting and can be used in all types of gardens. A sprinkling of natives...

  • Use Social Media To Show You're The Expert
    By Todd Vendituoli - Thursday May 3, 2012
    In today’s construction market every business needs to use every avenue possible to enhance their position and social media is a great tool for doing that. It makes no difference whether you are a large or small builder. By not using this source you are hurting your business’ position and bottom line. Social media provides an opportunity to enhance your authority and reputation, and make you stand out among the many other builders that a potential buyer has to choose from. What you will you gain by using social media? You have the advantage to show that you have expert knowledge and experience as a builder. In a crowded market with so many builders trying to attract potential buyers, setting yourself above the rest is a key part...

  • What happens when inspiration hits at the wrong time
    By Todd Mather - Thursday April 26, 2012
    I had just awoken from a short night. Having flown in the night before to Salt Lake City to meet with my clients for a new home, my schedule was already busy early this morning with last minute binding of drawings and sketches. I was presenting my two-week’s intensive conceptual design work in less than an hour. While they are always prompt and I certainly try to be on every occasion, I had to call them to do the unthinkable: Postpone the first presentation. This is a scary moment for a designer. If late to the first meeting, they may have second thoughts about their decision to hire an out-of-state architect. Trust lost is the doom of any project. Sometimes you have to take risks. That was just the first one. I wasn’t just late...

  • Your Employees are Extension of You, On and Off Line
    By Maureen Alley - Friday April 20, 2012
    My last blog post was all about businesses having an online reputation whether they like it or not. This post goes a step further: Your employees' online reputations affecting your business reputation. In the last week, I've read two articles about employees doing things online that negatively reflect back on their employers. The first happened with Runner's World and a freelancer who tweeted sexist remarks during the Boston Marathon. This freelancer continued to ruin his reputation by being combative at critics, and continuing to tweet patronizing and insulting posts - instead of apologizing. In this freelancer's Twitter bio, it listed him as a freelancer for Runner's World . So now Runner's World was directly connected to...

  • If you want to go broke, work for free
    By Bonnie Pickartz - Thursday April 12, 2012
    The construction market can be tough even during good times. There is always someone willing to work cheaper, cut corners, and even misrepresent their products and services. In today’s tighter economy, you see this even more. Being competitive without losing your shirt is a challenge. While we may be tempted to work for free to get our foot in the door, it serves no one ... not you and certainly not your client. Preparing a simple bid based on a defined scope of work may not take much time and you can probably bid those jobs quickly and easily. But most jobs don’t come with a written scope of work. Homeowners are opting to stay in their existing homes, remodeling and renovating instead of moving. The scope of these projects is...

  • Answers to the question, “How’s business?”
    By Rob Heselbarth - Thursday April 5, 2012
    Access to money remains a problem for the housing industry, according to the builders, remodelers and architects I speak to. Banks continue to be overly selective when deciding which homeowners – and sometimes home builders – they lend money to, I’m told. This continues to stall a significant housing recovery. As someone who is lucky enough to travel around the country and meet with many of you on a regular basis, I ask many of you, “How’s business?” I’ve been asking this question a lot lately, and the answer most times is, “Better than it has been.” While this is nice to hear, it not a good-enough answer, so I always follow up with, “Does that mean the phone is ringing more, or that clients are actually spending...

  • Designing, Building for Water Efficiency
    By Todd Vendituoli - Friday March 30, 2012
    Energy efficiency is a topic that is all around and for good reason. My feeling is that the problem is not just one factor but many, such as climate change, a growing population and more. Some of these we can work on and yet others such as human population growth and demand, are areas that are much larger in scope. As builders, we cannot affect worldwide population change but we can help in every project we build and design for others. To the is a chart from the Environmental Protection Agency showing a breakdown of the average use of an American family of four and how they consume approximately 400 gal. of water per day. What can a builder do to help make a difference? Faucets . Make sure every faucet is a water saver and...

  • Like it or not, you have an online reputation
    By Maureen Alley - Friday March 16, 2012
    As the community editor for ForResidentialPros.com and its respective brands, I am in the social media/web world all day long. And I love it. I have been known to profess my addiction to Twitter. But I also know there are many people who don't see social media and the web as exciting as I do. I've had many discussions with builders and remodelers - or even business people in general - where they aggressively attack these tools. Oftentimes the response is "Why should I waste my time?" "My clients aren't there." "My business is doing fine without it." Or even the, "I don't want to open myself up to negative comments and the wild west of the web." All of these objections come straight from misunderstanding of the tools available, fear and...

  • Promote Your Business with Online Slideshows
    By Bonnie Pickartz - Thursday March 8, 2012
    You know what you’re doing. Your clients are in awe of the work you do. You’re proud of your work. You have photos of almost every job, many from beginning to end. So, are you sharing your expertise with the world? If not, it’s time to do just that. Nothing tells the story better than photos. You can have an album of pictures in your office; you can carry one with you; you have photos on the wall; and you even have photos on your website. But consider sharing them in even more ways. Slideshows have long been a great presentation tool. However, you’re limited if you have to set up a projector and give a talk about your work. Even if you have the slideshow on your laptop and take it with you, you are still showing your work to...

  • I'm getting work through social media
    By Todd Vendituoli - Thursday February 23, 2012
    There was a time that I didn’t have the need to assess my business. I was busy and working seven days a week making sure that everything was getting done as it needed to be. What was there to assess?   Yet now is a different story, a different time and in the last year I have had to take a long hard and objective look at business. There’s no pretending that all is well or that it will get better next month or next season. The reality is that it may take some time before things turn around in the construction industry. Reality isn’t always a fun mirror to look into but it is a necessary part of being in business. You have to see what is there and adapt to it. This tends to be easier for smaller businesses because there isn’t the...

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