The Larger Business Lessons From My Recent Home Renovation

During that time, quite a few things have happened around the house to the tune of close to well, let’s just say middling to high five figures, and we’re not done yet.

What we are done with is hiring people to do stuff for us, for the moment at least. These people included:

A great contractor named Andrew Ciazynski, who rebuilt our basement, upstairs bathroom and kitchen...

A painter named Greg Ciazynski, Andrew’s nephew, who repainted most of the house...

An insulation guy named Rolf Numsen who insulated a large crawlspace we discovered, which then allowed the AC and furnace to cool and heat the whole house more efficiently...

And Casey O’Rourke from CityWide who brought in a great crew to dig up and waterproof the entire back of our house literally in two days, which was amazing.

All that’s left is replacing the gas fireplace in the living room which was installed when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and fixing the fence which blew down in the big windstorms last winter, which I will do with my neighbor.

What’s The Point, Jim?

The thing that impressed me the most about all the people we have hired is that the work that they do is amazing. Andrew, in particular was extremely fussy, and always lobbied for ‘getting right down to the studs’, as he called it, to make sure everything was squared up and would look great when it was finished.

The Business Lessons

A few of the things I took away from this experience were:

When you’re working in a smaller market, like St Catharines (as compared to say Toronto or Hamilton/Burlington, where you can keep your business floating through advertising), you really do have to deliver a first class service all the time. Because if you don’t, it gets around pretty damn quick.

Everybody we hired took complete responsibility for making sure that the job was done well, and that we were happy campers at the end of the process. Because they understood that doing that, as well as making sure they did A & B, was the key to both keeping us as customers and turning those us into fans who will be confident in referring them.

I strongly maintain that there are a lot of larger companies who could learn a lot by observing how smaller businesses operate, especially when it comes to things like customer relationships and retention.

Too many businesses run themselves in a very impersonal way, mainly because the technology exists for them to do that, and eke a little more profit out of the process.

What they don’t appreciate is the human factor on the other end of each transaction. That the customer needs to feel that they are not just part of some automated process, and will have to go through a lot of crap to make sure their opinions are heard and understood.

And that is true for companies in the B to B sector, as well as those who deal directly with ‘the public’.

I know this because I have experienced it first hand owned several house in Toronto, and dealt with countless trades people there there.

The people in this community, and probably a lot of other smaller cities and towns, have it all over a lot of the big city guys…because, for all the reasons I just pointed out, they have to.

Necessity isn’t just the mother of invention, it’s the mother of customer service too.

Jim out.

Jim Murray is a marketer and creative professional. His partner, Charlene Norman is marketing strategist and operations tactician. Together, their collaboration, Bullet Proof Consulting, specializes in Brand Engineering: Helping companies achieve more effective branding, stronger reputation management, greater productivity, higher efficiencies, and ultimately, increased profits. In short, Bullet Proof helps companies change their thinking for the better. Find out more at www.bulletproofconsulting.ca

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