Builder Stories

Ashley Wainscott built Simply Home for years on referrals and relationship marketing alone. In recent years she made a real investment in SEO, paid ads, and video content, even without a clean way to prove any of it was converting. She talks about the shift from scripted, robotic video to something rawer, and what her content looks like today. In this episode she breaks down her current lead mix and the rule she uses to decide whether a new marketing channel is worth keeping.

In this episode you will learn:

• Why Ashley believed relationships alone would carry her business, until they stopped being enough
• How she turned her direct competitors into one of her most reliable sources of new clients
• The shift from scripted, robotic video to something rawer, and what her content looks like now
• What she spends each month on video content with no clear way to prove it converts
• The rule of thumb she uses to decide whether a new marketing channel is worth keeping

Resources:

Hear the full conversation on Builder Stories. Learn more about Ashley's work here.

Morgan Thomas spent 15 years in commercial and residential construction before launching Homestead Builders Group in Healdsburg, California, with her business partner. Her promise to every client is a project with no surprises. Morgan believes most construction mishaps can be caught with upfront investigation before anyone picks up a tool. In this episode, she shares how she built her new company around that promise from day one.

In this episode you will learn:

• How an itemized preconstruction agreement makes every responsibility clear before demo starts
• Why an old-school whiteboard keeps crews accountable every day
• The "superpower" that allows her to forecast accurately, know when to hire, and dial in her pipeline
• The simple social media habit that turns architects and designers into referral partners
• What keeps disagreements between co-founders from damaging the partnership

Resources:

Hear the full conversation on Builder Stories. Learn more about Homestead Builders Group here.

Jared Davis left Stripe to take over a family business that sells house plans to builders across the US and Canada. Today Architectural Designs represents 28,000 plans from around 200 designers and sells to tens of thousands of builders every year. In this conversation he shares what that buying data reveals about regional growth and shifting design tastes. He also makes the case that a stock plan can get a builder to a custom design faster than starting from scratch.

In this episode you will learn:

• Why the "pre-drawn" stigma is costing builders time in preconstruction
• The question to ask before hiring an in-house designer
• The home style that dominated the last decade and what's replacing it
• The regions where home building growth is spiking, according to what people are buying
• What a life-size floor plan walkthrough revealed about how buyers decide

Resources:

Hear the full conversation on Builder Stories. Learn more about Architectural Designs here.

An agent is just a program that runs on a timer and does one job for you. IT Director Jeremy Wood has about 30 of them working inside of a large, 80 year old design build firm that handles projects from handyman jobs to whole-house remodels. They sync the CRM, process AP, reconcile vendor invoices, check estimates against scopes of work, and much more. Here, Jeremy explains what agents are, how to run them, and why the version most people picture is the version you should never build. He even used agents to select construction software and had a graded shortlist of options before he ever spoke to a salesperson. In this episode you will learn:

• What an AI agent really is in plain language, and why the simplest ones are doing the most valuable work at Neil Kelly
• The one thing Jeremy refuses to let AI do in a business process, and what he has it do instead
• What Jeremy learned he was really building when he thought he was building agents
• The three levels of company technology, and why agents only work if the bottom two are solid
• Why mid-size companies are falling behind smaller ones on AI right now, and how a small shop can turn that into an advantage

Resources:

Hear the full conversation on Builder Stories. Learn more about the Neil Kelly Company here.

Todd Milton inherited his father's sterling reputation as an Appomattox, Virginia home builder, then nearly ran the company into the ground. He then attended a two-day conference that exposed how badly he had been pricing jobs, and that same year he closed the books $100,000 in debt. He rebuilt his pricing, rewrote his contract into something that protected him, and slowly turned a business run off a legal pad into one with real financial software behind it. Today he's learning when and how to step back and let his team lead.

In this episode you will learn:

• The pricing myth he believed for nearly a decade that bled his company dry
• The unconventional method he used to climb out of six figures in debt
• The formula that finally showed him what he actually needed to charge to turn a profit
• How long it really took before his marketing investment started paying off
• The advice from a client that changed the way he leads his team

Resources:

Hear the full conversation on Builder Stories. Learn more about Todd's work here.

Canon Baldridge started Integria in 2023 with no connections in California and no book of business to fall back on. Every hire since has forced him to redefine his own role, from hands on tools to project management to marketing and sales. He has assembled a stack of software and outside partners piece by piece, adding each one only when the last version of the business stopped working. Three years in he is rebranding as a design build firm because a run of change orders proved the model itself had outgrown its usefulness.

In this episode you will learn:

• The software stack Canon runs a four person company on, and the one piece he preaches like the gospel
• The outside partners Canon relies on for clarity, branding, and administrative help
• How Canon divides work between a virtual assistant and AI so neither one runs unchecked
• The weekly meeting he and his wife have not missed in two years, and the $200 rule that guarantees it
• The two words Canon says every owner needs before they can build anything worth keeping

Listen to the full episode and learn more about Integria here.

Dan Flansburg started his New Jersey remodeling company in 2011 with a truck, a set of tools, and no business plan. For three years in the middle of that run, several of his employees took home more money than he did. Around 2018 he stopped treating marketing as an expense and hired a real web team, an SEO company, and a professional photographer. Three years ago he added video, and he now calls it the biggest change his company has made.

In this episode you will learn:

• What Dan tracks on every job and the three years he lost by not tracking it
• The six weeks off his feet that taught him to delegate for the first time
• The two outside programs that helped him scale the company and improve operational efficiency
• How he handles scripting for his videos, and who's on the video team
• The two kinds of callers he can tell apart within a few qualifying questions

Listen to the episode to learn more.

Resources:

Learn more about Flansburg Construction here.

Tyler Hunsberger has won a NARI Contractor of the Year award and earned a spot on Pro Remodeler's 40 Under 40. He is a fourth-generation contractor who has spent nearly 15 years on the sales and design side of remodeling. Now he is bringing that playbook back to his family's company after 25 years with no marketing, no estimating, and one single customer. This conversation is a masterclass in how remodelers actually win jobs.

In this episode you will learn:

• How Tyler builds real excitement on a first phone call before he has ever seen the project
• What he does with a lead that is clearly a bad fit for his company
• The approach that earns him reviews far more often than any email or QR code
• How he opens the budget conversation without naming his own numbers first
• The way he delivers a $15,000 change order without losing the client's trust

Listen to the episode to learn more.

Resources:

Learn more about Tyler and his work here.

Mike Coffey grew his social media audience from nothing to more than 120,000 Instagram followers. Here, he reveals how contractors can use social platforms to build trust, show their humanity, and turn finished-project beauty shots into real sales opportunities. He also shares how suffering a stroke last year changed his priorities. Instead of feeling consumed by the less inspiring parts of his business, he is now focused on building a life around the things he loves most: producing excellent work and the creation of meaningful content he can share with others.

In this episode you will learn:

• How much social growth your business really needs
• The difference between personal branding and company branding
• How Mike learned the best times to post
• Common social media mistakes contractors should avoid
• What to know before working with sponsors and brands

Listen to the episode to learn more.

Resources:

Learn more about Coffey Custom Builds here.

Kelly Kirk took over Greymark Design + Build a few weeks after her mother, who founded the company, passed away. Leslie King was a larger-than-life figure and a well-known industry leader. Kelly chose to honor that legacy while also finding her own voice as a leader and bringing in fresh processes and a new approach. The journey wasn't easy, but today Kelly heads up a thriving company with a strong, aligned, and high performing team.

In this episode you will learn:

• Why Kelly could not lead the way her mother did, and what she built in its place
• The single email that changed how Kelly's team saw her, and how long the effect took to compound
• What her business coach used to pull the company through its worst stretch, and why it was far simpler than she expected
• The client comment that revealed a blind spot only someone outside the industry could see
• How she plans in one, three, five, seven, and ten year increments without losing focus on the current month

Listen to the episode to learn more.

Resources:

Learn more about Greymark Design + Build here.