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Why Bother to Join the Builders Association?

A few years ago, I was teaching a Certified Graduate Remodelor™ (CGR) course for a successful local when a member of the class asked if he could “buy my breakfast and pick my brain.” Curiosity had brought me to the brink (like the cat) on several occasions, but I survived and this turned out to be one of those times.

This young man was a framing subcontractor doing about $300,000 per year and making good money. He felt that framing, while lucrative, was not building a company. He was trying some remodeling on his own, but couldn’t make it profit-wise. What really hurt was that he was making good money as a framer, so he couldn't reconcile not doing that to become a remodeler.

As I recall, his leading question was, “What am I doing wrong?” After a few basic questions, my answer to him was, “Just about everything but framing.”

He was very good at estimating and running his framing company, but he was trying to do the remodeling by being right in the middle of things. As long as he ran the field, he was limiting how much work he could do, thereby concentrating his overhead on too little work.

He needed to step away, take off his tool belt, put down his hammer and run the company. I suggested a simple paper trail system my company had developed over the years.

When I said he was doing almost everything wrong except framing, I neglected to say that he was also being a little skeptical about the value of his NAHB membership. He did believe in asking questions to learn.

Well, he stayed with it, earned his CGR, stayed active in his local, volunteered on some committees and gave his time. He was giving, but he was also getting — getting experience, getting answers and networking with some of the best professionals in his market.

Did it pay off? You might say so. He told me recently in a CAPS (Certified Aging in Place Specialist) class that this year he will do several times the gross business he was doing at the time of our “breakfast” — and at a gross margin that made me green with envy.

And did he drop out of the local’s activities? I think not. This year he is vice chairman of his Remodelors™ Council and won the Bryan Patchan Scholarship for national leadership to gain experience at the national level.

If you don’t think he gives his local a lot of the credit for his success, ask him. He’s a remodeler through and through. He’s Steve Scheipeter, CGR, CAPS of the S. W. Scheipeter Construction Company, member of the Home Builders Associaton of Greater St. Louis.

While a great success story, it is not exclusively his. Steve is just one member who took full advantage of the benefits of his NAHB membership. Are you?

MM (Mike) Weiss, CGR, CGB, GMB, CAPS, president of Weiss & Company, is the immediate past president of the national Remodelors™ Council. Weiss tours the country teaching both CGR and CAPS courses to hundreds of professional remodelers a year. For more information, e-mail Weiss.

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