The Why We Build Podcast!

Every remodeling company starts with one person doing everything, and the personal touch that built the company is the thing that eventually holds it back. Bill Cowdin started Cowdin Design + Build in a spare bedroom in 2008 and grew it into a full-service design-build firm in Plymouth, Michigan. He tells Greg what it took to pay for his first hire, the job where he realized he had never met the client, why he hires for the person instead of the resume, and how fully planning every job before construction brought his referral rate back to 37 percent. Plus what a private pilot knows about checklists, and how Cowdin has run a four-day week since coming out of COVID.

Why AI Search Is Changing Remodeler Marketing, and Why Leadership Still Matters

This episode looks at how homeowners now research remodelers through AI tools, and why that shift creates a leadership problem as much as a marketing one.

Greg Woleck

is joined by Varak Balian, founder of Remodelers Peak and a fractional CMO for remodelers and design-build firms, to unpack what has changed in the buyer journey and what still matters most.They discuss how sales, marketing, and production need to work from the same positioning and data, how AI tools evaluate trust signals, and why qualified leads still depend on fundamentals instead of shortcuts.

Key topics

• Homeowners increasingly arrive with AI-generated answers about budget, scope, and timeline before talking to a remodeler.
• Varak Balian shares his background in construction, sales, and marketing leadership at a Toronto renovation company.
• Why sales and marketing are two sides of one coin: marketing sets the promise, and sales helps fulfill it.
• How disconnected teams can create confusion for designers, estimators, project managers, and lead carpenters.
• What a fractional CMO does for remodeling companies that need marketing leadership before hiring a full-time executive.
• Why remodelers may hit a growth ceiling where random marketing tactics stop working and strategy becomes necessary.
• How AI tools surface recommendations using trust signals such as technical SEO, on-page content, off-page authority, Google reviews, and local mentions.
• Why SEO, GEO, and AEO are not magic tricks, but rely on a shared foundation of trust, clarity, and discoverability.
• The difference between being mentioned by AI and generating qualified leads, especially in a zero-click world.
• A practical way to start: list common homeowner questions, turn them into useful content, and distribute it consistently.

Action items

• List the 10 most common homeowner questions your sales team hears.
• Prioritize questions about cost, scope, and common objections.
• Turn one question into a helpful piece of content.
• Publish it in the easiest channel available.
• Set aside a regular weekly or monthly time block for content.
• Track qualified opportunities, not just traffic, followers, or clicks.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/varak-balian/

[email protected]

Most remodeling companies hire on feel. The person shook hands right, knew somebody we knew, and could start Monday. Fletcher Wimbush, CEO of Discovered and creator of the FACT Driven Hiring System, has spent his career on the parts of hiring most of us rush or skip. In this episode he walks Greg through a live demonstration of how to set up a reference check inside the interview, why you should never hire anyone without talking to their previous boss, how a weak candidate can lead you to your next great carpenter, and the 30-minute exercise every company should do before it writes a job ad. Plus a work comp statistic that should change how you onboard.

A remodeling job gets estimated at 112 working days. It finishes at 368.

This spring, production managers in six Remodelers Advantage Production Manager Roundtable (PMRT) groups put their schedule numbers side by side. Inside a single group, one company was slipping about one job in ten. Another was slipping more than half. Same kind of market, same economy. A gap that size comes from how a company runs.

In this solo episode, Greg Woleck walks through what the numbers showed about schedule slip (finishing late) and grip (finishing early), and what the best production managers do to hold the date they promised.

In this episode:

- Why anything more than 2% off the promised duration, in either direction, is a warning sign

- Why finishing early isn't the win it feels like

- The six reasons jobs slip, and why most of them are preventable

- The three-week look-ahead and the job handoff sheet - Why production needs a say before the contract is signed

- Why a slipping schedule is often the first sign a PM is struggling

"The homeowner doesn't need you to be fast. They need you to be right."

Learn more about the Production Manager Roundtables: https://remodelersadvantage.com/membership/production-manager-peer-groups/

To talk about a PMRT seat, email Greg at [email protected] with PMRT in the subject line. Owners, the same email works for a seat for your PM.

Have a topic, a guest, or a story from the remodeling world worth sharing? Reach out to Greg at [email protected].

The Why We Build Podcast explores the people, ideas, systems, and stories behind residential remodeling.

This episode digs into what it takes for a local plumbing company to compete as private equity money reshapes the trades. Max Hicks, founder of Reliant Plumbing, shares how he went from a teenage work program and union plumbing to building a multi-market company across Texas. We discuss scaling without losing service quality, communicating value when bigger brands dominate the market, and why Max believes staying independent still makes sense for his business.

Key topics

• Max Hicks shares how his plumbing career started at 16 through a work program after school was not a fit for him.
• He explains how early experience in new construction and commercial work taught him hard work, but service plumbing is where he found his passion.
• In this episode, Max breaks down how he started Reliant Plumbing from a borrowed van, a small tool set, and almost no service experience.
• He describes the mindset of building a business instead of just creating another job for himself, and how that shaped every hiring decision.
• Max says growth came from filling roles only when the business truly needed them, then training someone else to take over.
• We discuss how private equity changed the market, especially lead costs, competition, and the pressure to show up with stronger systems and sales.
• Max shares that scaling across Texas required the right people in the right seats, especially for market expansion into cities like San Antonio.
• He says one of the hardest parts of growth is financial discipline—wanting to keep more of the money instead of reinvesting everything back into expansion.
• Max explains why he chose to stay independent: he loves the work, values flexibility, and does not want the identity shift that can come after a sale.
• He talks about communicating value by focusing on talent, advertising, and honest self-awareness about what the company is and is not best at.
• Max advises other owners facing private equity interest to think hard about what they want after a sale and to understand why the buyer wants the business.

Follow Reliant Plumbing of TikTok @reliantplumbing_tx

Ready to build a stronger, more profitable remodeling business? Visit RemodelersAdvantage.com to discover the resources, coaching, and community designed to help remodelers grow with confidence—without losing what makes their business unique.

Greg Woleck talks with Jef Forward, founder, president, and owner of Forward Design Build Remodel in Ann Arbor, Michigan, about what it really takes to improve leadership from the top down. The conversation centers on self-awareness, vulnerability, and how Jef is using AI and DISC profiles to coach himself and his team in real time.

Key topics

• In this episode, Jef explains why leadership development often fails when everyone except the owner gets training, and why change has to begin with the person signing the checks.
• He describes the shift from doing everything himself to becoming a true head coach, with his role focused on strategy, culture, and helping others lead.
• Jef shares how peer groups, coaches, and books like The Five Levels of Leadership and Multipliers reshaped his view of leadership.
• He breaks down Liz Wiseman’s idea of the accidental diminisher and gives examples of how leaders can shut teams down by answering too quickly, monologuing, or flooding a conversation with too many ideas.
• Jef explains how he uses Claude as an AI coaching board to prepare for meetings, review his communication style, and get feedback based on his own DISC profile and the other person’s profile.
• Jef says the goal is not scripts, but better thinking, better questions, and more confident conversations with clients and teammates.
• He outlines how his team is beginning to use AI to reduce administrative friction, including turning transcripts into task updates and creating “what to say” preparation tools for difficult client conversations.
• He talks candidly about rollout challenges, including team skepticism, fear of replacement, and the need to introduce new systems slowly.
• He highlights the company’s broader operational goal of creating a single source of truth so sales, design, production, and leadership stay aligned.
• He closes with a strong leadership principle: be vulnerable, ask for help, and let your team see that you do not have all the answers.

Notable quotes

“You are not a leader until you have built a leader.”

“The number one step you can take to be a better version of yourself as a leader is to be vulnerable.”

“What would an honest coach tell me about my own blind spots?”

Find out more

Learn more about Jef and Forward Design Build Remodel at planforward.net. Learn more about the remodeling community and resources from Remodelers Advantage at www.remodelersadvantage.com.

EPISODE SUMMARY

If you pulled your last 10 change orders and sorted them into two piles — things you truly couldn't have known, and things the client added or you didn't nail down up front — which pile would be bigger? For most design-build firms, it's the second pile, and Greg opens this episode arguing that's not a field problem. It's a design and sales problem that showed up late.

Greg is joined by Will Pritiken, founder of Aforma Design Studio, an embedded design practice built specifically for builders, architects, and developers who need real design capacity without standing up a full in-house team. Will ran construction and did development work before starting his own design-build company in Portland, then built Aforma after fellow Remodelers Advantage roundtable members asked him to bail out their stalled design projects. The conversation covers why design gets treated as a lost leader instead of a profit center, why the 20–30% contingency in your pricing might be covering for decisions that were never made rather than risks nobody could have predicted, and how a structured design partnership protects your client relationship, your brand, and your margin.

RESOURCES & LINKS

Aforma Design Studio: aforma.co

Email Will: [email protected] or [email protected]

Book mentioned: Upstream by Dan Heath

Remodelers Advantage: RemodelersAdvantage.com

Learn more about Remodelers Advantage Roundtables, production and design manager groups, consulting services, and other programs at RemodelersAdvantage.com. Questions or episode ideas? Email Greg at [email protected].

If a homeowner asked an AI assistant, not Google, an actual AI assistant to find the best remodeler in the area, would your company even come up?

Homeowners are increasingly skipping the search results page and just asking AI tools like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Claude for a recommendation — then calling one of the one or two names they get back. Your site can rank great on Google and still be invisible to that conversation.

In this episode, host Greg Wallach talks with Thomas Harpointner, founder and CEO of AIS Media, Inc., a 20-plus-year digital marketing and strategy agency in Atlanta. Thomas breaks down why AI search is the biggest shift in digital marketing he's seen in two decades, why some clients have seen 30–60% drops in organic traffic even as their Google rankings improved, and — most importantly — what a remodeler can do this week to start earning citations and recommendations from AI.

You'll learn:

• Why AI tools act as a new "middleman" between homeowners and remodelers, and how that changes the rules of the game
• What signals AI systems look for before they'll cite or recommend a business (hint: it's all about authority and trust)
• Why the opportunity isn't just Google anymore — Reddit, Pinterest, YouTube, and trade publications all feed AI answers
• A simple, three-step plan to start building AI visibility this week, no big budget required
• Why traditional SEO isn't dead — and how it still forms the foundation of AI trust

Notable quote: "The AI has to know that you exist. Otherwise you are just a magic trick in the dark." — Thomas Harpointner

Resources mentioned:

• AIS Media, Inc.: aismedia.com (free AI search guide available now)
• Remodelers Advantage: RemodelersAdvantage.com

Go ask an AI assistant who the best remodeler is in your area and see what comes back — then share this episode with whoever owns your website and marketing.

Learn more about Remodelers Advantage Roundtables, production and design manager groups, consulting services, and other programs at RemodelersAdvantage.com. Questions or episode ideas? Email Greg at [email protected].

EPISODE SUMMARY

Every design-build owner has lived this moment: an early budget gets a client excited, the design gets refined, and the real estimate lands 20–30% higher. Jason Langkammerer, President of AT6 Architecture + Design Build in the San Francisco Bay Area, walks through the system his firm built to close that gap — the “Design (Un)certainty Contingency.” Borrowed from the commercial construction “cone of uncertainty” and sparked by a conversation with Ian Schwandt of TDS Design Build, the approach bakes a shrinking contingency percentage into every budget from the first proposal through final pricing. As the design firms up, the contingency comes down — and the two numbers meet in the middle. Jason and Greg dig into the mechanics, how to present it to clients without sounding like padding, and what it takes to finally stop dreading the final-estimate conversation.

GUEST

Jason Langkammerer, President, AT6 Architecture + Design Build — at6db.com

Design-build runs in Jason's family — his father was both an architect and a contractor. Jason grew up between the Craftsman and Victorian homes of Berkeley and a decade immersed in modern architecture in Los Angeles, a dual perspective that shaped his design philosophy. AT6 started as a design-only practice before Jason brought construction in-house to give clients a smoother, more coordinated path from concept to completion. He still personally guides every project's budget from initial estimate through final pricing.

RESOURCES & LINKS

• AT6 Architecture + Design Build: at6db.com

• Ian Schwandt / TDS Design Build — mentioned for his Substack on production and construction numbers

• Remodelers Advantage: remodelersadvantage.com

Episode Summary

Finding great people has become one of the biggest challenges facing remodeling companies today. But what if the real question isn't "How do I find good people?" What if it's "Why would great people choose to work here and stay?"

In this episode, Greg sits down with Danielle Russell, President and part owner of Builder Funnel, to explore the future of talent, leadership, and company culture in the remodeling industry. Danielle shares how Builder Funnel has built an award-winning workplace culture while achieving remarkable growth, and why intentional leadership, mentorship, and transparency may be the ultimate competitive advantage.

Together, they discuss the widening labor gap, the importance of mission, vision, and core values, how open book management creates ownership, and why mentorship may be the most overlooked leadership responsibility in our industry today.

If you're struggling to attract or retain great people, this conversation offers practical ideas you can begin implementing immediately.

Key Takeaways

• The real hiring question is not "How do I find good people?" but "Why would a high performer choose to work here and stay?"
• Company culture is a strategic advantage, not a perks program. Clarity, accountability, and leadership matter more than pizza parties.
• Mission, vision, and core values only matter when they are actively lived and integrated into everyday operations.
• Great companies continuously attract talent, even when they are not actively hiring.
• Open book management can help employees think and act like owners when paired with proper education and training.
• Mentorship is becoming increasingly important as experienced industry professionals retire faster than new workers enter the trades.
• "Clarity is kindness." Clear expectations and honest conversations are essential to strong leadership.

Connect with Danielle Russell

• LinkedIn: Danielle Russell
• Builder Funnel: BuilderFunnel.com

About Our Guest

Danielle Russell is the President and part owner of Builder Funnel, a digital marketing agency dedicated exclusively to helping remodelers and custom home builders grow through strategic digital marketing. During her time at Builder Funnel, Danielle has helped lead the company to significant growth while cultivating an award-winning culture centered around transparency, leadership development, and employee engagement. She is passionate about helping organizations create workplaces where high performers thrive.

Connect With The Why We Build Podcast

The Why We Build Podcast explores the people, processes, and purpose behind exceptional remodeling companies. Each episode features conversations with industry leaders who are committed to building better businesses, stronger teams, and more fulfilling careers.

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