PowerTips Unscripted

Small business owners spend a lifetime building a company and have one shot at getting their exit right.

Yet waiting to pounce on this unsuspecting group is a legion of financial mercenaries, private equity predators and corporate giants set up to prey on owner’s lack of experience when it comes to mergers and acquisitions.

These financial engineers use sleazy tactics like “strategic pacing,” “re-trading,” and “proprietary deal flow” to dupe owners into selling their life’s work for pennies on the dollar.

Our guest in this episode, John Warrillow, passionately advocates owners reframe how they approach their company from thinking of it as a job to building a transferable and valuable asset.

John is the founder of The Value Builder System, a simple software for building the value of a company used by thousands of businesses worldwide. He is a past Keynote Speaker at our Remodelers Summit and has been a guest here on PowerTips Unscripted in milestone episodes 01 and 100.

Victoria, Mark and John talk more about:

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Toyota pioneered the LEAN manufacturing system, and we know — houses aren’t cars. But neither are people, and the LEAN concept of continuous improvement is used by hospitals too. 

So even if remodeling isn’t brain surgery, we can learn a lot from how LEAN has been applied in healthcare. You can get some of the best help with your business by looking at how other industries use continuous improvement.

In this episode, Liz Moisan talks to Victoria and Mark about using LEAN principles in healthcare and how it can be applied to remodeling. She says Kaizen or LEAN principles give you a common language for things we already know, creating a foundation to move forward.

Liz is a product innovation specialist at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, and has been a practitioner of the Virginia Mason Production System since 2008. She teaches, facilitates, and works to continually evolve how Kaizen is applied in a health-care setting. She’s married to R/A Roundtables member Matt Moisan.

The hospital employs daily Kaizen, so even the smallest roadblock can be eliminated, as well as  higher-level applications. She shares some real-world examples, including cutting down on waiting times for patients (yay!), working with vendors to get what the hospital needs when it needs it, The Five Ss, and how to look at a particular process to improve it, including:

Here are those two books Liz recommends for getting started understanding the Kaizen principles:

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The concept behind developing a customer persona is pretty simple – get to know your audience better so that you can build a more meaningful relationship with them, both as a client and a prospect.

The output of that analysis is inevitable company growth and client retention. So how do firms, of all sizes, build meaningful personas to shape the way they go to market?

In this episode, Aimee Pagano talks with Victoria and Mark about the process of building these vital tools and what a remodeling firm can do with them.

Aimee is the Director of Programming at HighRoad Solutions, a smartech data integration company for associations. She has 20 years of marketing and communications experience and her specialties include persona development, content strategy and generation, lead gen, and website development / optimization.

Victoria, Mark and Aimee talk more about:

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For many, determining the compensation for an employee is nothing more than doing a quick Google search, or in our members case, maybe asking their peers what they pay for a particular position.  But Tom Miller doesn’t really agree with that methodology.  Instead, his company helps businesses apply the best compensation strategies that help recruit great talent.

Tom is the founder and president of The VisionLink Advisory Group, a compensation design firm that services private businesses across North America. Tom and his firm have served over 600 companies across all industries. 

In this episode, Tom discusses how to help small businesses apply the best practice compensation strategies that help recruit great talent, encourage the execution of the business plan, and growing a company.

Victoria, Mark and Tom talk more about:

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In this episode, Jeff Talmadge discusses how he and his team created a point system for his design staff to spread their workload.  Each designer is assigned a predetermined number of points, weighted by criteria such as permitting, scope, and complexity of the job.  The team tracks points weekly and has found that designers are less stressed, customers are given more accurate timelines, and production can plan their workload better.

Jeff Talmadge is the president of Talmadge Construction, a large, premium design-build firm based in Aptos, CA.  Jeff and his team pride themselves on their commitment to customer service, quality workmanship, and a strong team culture.  

Jeff’s five words of wisdom – patience, persistence, never give up.

Listen as Jeff, Victoria, and Mark discuss:

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The Cost-Plus Pricing model seems to go completely against common sense, but it’s a concept that we’re getting more questions about from our membership. One contributing factor is that consumers increasingly demand transparency when purchasing products and services — and homeowners are coming to expect it when undertaking a remodeling project. But so many remodelers don’t understand it. Can Cost Plus be your new pricing model?

Josh Baker, co-founder of BOWA Builders, has been using Cost-Plus Pricing for more than 20 years. In this episode, he talks to Victoria and Mark about its pros and cons, and why it’s a cornerstone of his company’s success.

Josh founded BOWA Builders in McLean, VA, with college friend Larry Weinberg in 1988, serving the Washington, DC, metro market. As the leader of BOWA’s sales and marketing team, Josh helped to quickly grow the company’s revenues from $250,000 to nearly $40 million in just 20 years. As chief revenue officer, Josh’s focus is on growth and managing an energetic, productive sales team. Recognized nationally as an expert in the industry, Josh is quoted regularly in publications, including The Washington Post, Better Homes & Gardens, and Remodeling, and is a frequent speaker at local and national industry meetings.

Cost-Plus Pricing can be a differentiator, but it can also frighten some remodeling business owners — as well as some clients. Josh explains how to present the concept to clients, and what it will take to implement it profitably, as well as:

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In this episode, we take a closer look at the sales process. We are always looking for fresh ideas and concepts that apply specifically to remodelers and those in the building community.

Our guest Jan Neiges is adamant that you should be selling to design, NOT designing to sell, and she shares how you can improve your closing ratio, gain more control of the sales cycle and earn a design fee within two hours.

Jan Neiges is a National Kitchen and Bath certified Kitchen Designer and on the nine-member board for NKBA. Jan brings her 20 years of experience as a kitchen and bath designer and her 40 years of sales experience to share the selling process that she has developed.

Victoria, Mark and Jan talk more about:

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One of our core principles is that remodeling companies should make a good net profit, after paying the owners an above-average salary. When the economy’s booming, you can get away with a lot and still hit those goals, sometimes by accident. But the goal is to get those healthy net profits consistently, year after year, even in a downturn.

In this episode, Mike Medford Sr. talks to Victoria and Mark about how to do just that. Before seeing the metrics of the Top Ten Roundtables members a few years ago, Mike says his financials were always in flux. But then he took those figures and made them hard targets.

Mike Medford Sr. has been a home remodeling contractor for over 40 years. In 2007, he partnered with his son, Mike Jr. to form what is now Medford Design Build, with offices in Colleyville and Arlington, TX. Mike Sr. is the former president of Medford Design Build and is currently retired. 

Mike challenged himself and his team to hit the new fixed targets. He refined their processes and challenged his team to hit those targets. By the next quarterly meeting, the company’s profits were rising. He talks about how he and his team made it happen, including:

Mike also talks about getting back to the art of contracting and how important that is to your margins.

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How can designers and production staff improve their success in the remodeling industry?  Guest Jeff Borovitz joins Victoria and Mark to talk about the deadly sins that get in the way of reaching your full potential.  

Jeff has worked and trained with many members of the Remodelers Advantage Roundtables community and brings that experience in talking about patterns and trends to continue, and avoid.

Since 1991, Jeff has worked with businesses across the globe, helping thousands improve their sales organizations and sales culture.  Jeff is now the owner of Sandler Training, a sales and leadership training company that helps business owners increase revenue, shorten sales cycles, and hire better-performing sales teams.  

Victoria, Mark and Jeff talk more about:

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As a seasoned business professional, you’ve probably been on both sides of the equation when it comes to giving and getting help. Get advice, give consultation. Gain a mentor, bestow some wisdom. While in these essential moments, we want to help and be helped, that doesn’t always happen. 

It helps to know there are differences in the types of support we can give and get — and what they are. 

In this episode, Allison Iantosca will discuss those distinctions with Victoria and Mark, and how stopping and thinking about how you ask for or give help will make the results more useful and valuable.

Allison is the president and owner of F.H. Perry Builder, a Boston-area custom remodeling firm focused on building homes and relationships of lasting value.

Though there are nuanced distinctions, coaching, consulting, and mentoring are not the same thing, says Allison. Knowing the differences will make the help given or gotten more relevant and valuable. Figuring it out includes knowing what you want to offer or receive in that moment, including:

One of the best ways to differentiate between the three main types of help you can give or get is to determine the goal, and what choices need to be made to get there.

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