Home Sweet Home

I noted previously that I’d be working with a great group of people starting a new blog. Well, it is here! The Hill is Home is a hyperlocal blog focusing on, in my completely biased opinion, the best neighborhood in Washington DC: Capitol Hill. If you’re in the DC area, check it out. If you or someone you know is planning to visit, check it out. It’s full of great insider news and perspectives, plus business coverage from yours truly.

Enjoy!

WILFMC: #3 Be hands on, then establish an equilibrium

What I Learned From My Contractor: A Series About the Client-Provider Relationship
Third in a series of 10 on the provider-client relationship. For background see the introduction.

Our project, while not a total gut and rehab, was still rather extensive. It didn’t start with the centerpiece project (the bathroom), rather it started in one room downstairs and moved methodically from there. Even though the project started with smaller jobs (building a coat closet, finishing off a partial wall and doing some electrical work), Carlos dropped in every day and did a walk through with me. He reviewed what the crew had done, what they were planning for the next day, we discussed any unexpected things that had come up, he answered all my questions and, on occasion, gave me a to do list.

There are very obvious benefits here: I’m included in the process, empowered to ask questions and we’re fine-tuning our communication. Let’s take this one step further in the chain, though. If you’re working with a client, it is immeasurably important to keep that client happy. But also don’t forget that client has a boss and that person is likely not involved in the day-to-day and knows much less about what’s going on, so taking this approach helps your client look good to the boss too. Though I don’t think my husband would consider himself my boss, he was the other principle in this transaction, but was much less involved in the daily decisions. When he’d come home at the end of the day, I’d give him the same walk through Carlos gave me, tell him any conclusions we’d come to regarding questions on the fly and gave him a chance to provide input on any outstanding questions. The result: he felt knowledgeable and included in the process, he understood why we were making certain decisions and didn’t ever feel caught off guard. Surprises are great for birthdays. They aren’t good when you’re spending a not-insignificant portion of your income on your home.

By the time we got to the centerpiece — the bathroom — we had a well-established working relationship. The project was rolling and we had a shared vision. We still had regular conversations, but daily discussions were no longer necessary. Now walkthroughs were every few days and we talked more about what would be happening over the course of the next week instead of the next day.

Alternatively, if you start hands-off, you may find yourself experiencing this process in reverse. Something goes wrong, communication isn’t strong, the working relationship isn’t good … then you’re forced to be more hands on, and now you’re digging out of a hole. Similar to the first post in this series, it is much easier to spend the time up front than to try and backtrack later.

Up next: Pay attention to the small things.

WILFMC: #2 Have a Higher Standard

What I Learned From My Contractor: A Series About the Client-Provider Relationship
Second in a series of 10 on the provider-client relationship. For background see the introduction.

I like to make lists. Not because I’m organized but because I like the feeling of checking things off and moving on.

We had a partial wall, about waist high, in the entryway and planned to finish it off by building on top of the existing wall and going all the way to the ceiling. One morning I left the house after admiring my newly-finished and freshly painted wall. When I came home later, Carlos had ripped a HUGE hole in the drywall near the bottom. What?! It was finished and we were moving on to other projects! Then he showed me: there was already a crack in the paint at the height of the old wall. He opened up the bottom – the original wall – and found that when it was initially built, the carpenter had put the studs too far apart. Now the old wall was unable to support the weight of the new wall. He fixed the previous, sub-par, work then patched the cracks, repainted and everything is as good as new. Which is nice since it is … brand new.

This scenario repeated itself over and over. When you are pulling down walls in a 100+ year old house, you find all kinds of surprises. We’d caucus as things came up and where a cosmetic fix would work, that’s what we went with. But when Carlos saw something that needed more attention, he made sure I knew. His mantra was that his reputation was on the line and he didn’t want to come back to fix something in two months that should have been done right the first time.

Up next: Be hands on, then establish an equilibrium

WILFMC: #1 Listen Closely and Be Clear

What I Learned From My Contractor: A Series About the Client-Provider Relationship
First in a series of 10 on the provider-client relationship. For background see the introduction.

This cannot be said enough. It is human nature: people don’t notice when things go right but they always notice when things go wrong. When working with clients, spend the time – however painstaking or tedious – to listen, ask the tough questions and clearly define the scope of work. Misunderstandings are so very easy to come by.

Language is a common place where clarity can be a challenge. When I said: “Paint all the baseboards white”, to me, the decision had been made. To my contractor, I’d done nothing to help him because he knows (and I learned) there are about 100 shades of white and 50 of them are virtually indistinguishable. Add a dash of patience to those listening skills, though, and things can improve even more. This was especially important when I was trying to decide between two contractors at the end of the bidding process. It was important that I got as much of an apples to apples comparison between the two options as possible, but everybody has their own way of presenting things. I spent a lot of time thinking about what questions would get to the heart of what I wanted to know and then make sure I was getting it during follow up discussions. An extra bonus? If either of the contractors I interviewed showed frustration or wasn’t responsive, then the decision was made all the more easy. Fortunately neither did, but it was clear as we continued talking that H3 was not only answering my questions but listening to what I was saying. He understood what I was trying to achieve and offered lots of suggestions for how to meet my goals within budget.

I felt good about the outcome (even though, ultimately, I had to increase my budget a bit) and Carlos got major credibility points. It was a great way to start a big project. This skill isn’t wasted on smaller projects either. Getting off on the right foot like this helps build loyalty for repeat business and referrals.

Up next: Have a Higher Standard

What I Learned From My Contractor: In the beginning ….

Know anybody who has renovated their house? If you do, I’m sure you have heard an earful. Over budget, missed deadlines, incomplete work … the list goes on. If you have been the one renovating, you have probably come home from work wondering what possibly unwelcome surprise awaits you and spent sleepless nights wondering when it would finally be finished. Perhaps this is an exaggeration, but I would wager that 99% of the renovation stories I hear are negative.

So, I asked myself, why have I been so pleased with my experience?

I have spent the last 5 months renovating my house (aka, World Headquarters of Black Lab Advisory, LLC ) and started way before that planning and getting bids. We started later than expected, we spent more than planned … yet I would be hard pressed to say anything negative about the experience. Being who I am, this made me terribly curious. For weeks I observed every aspect of what was going on in my house until I figured it out. It was culture. My contractor, whom you will meet momentarily, established a culture via his operational and management philosophy, that made for a great experience. How he did that will be the subject of the next 10 posts. But before we get started, I’ll set the stage with a little background information.

The House: 1904 Victorian row in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, DC. Two levels, 2 bedrooms, 1.5 baths, English basement, street parking, no central A/C, sidewalk garden and small backyard with a deck (and lovely landscaping courtesy of Mr. Black Lab). Bought in 2001, completely renovated the kitchen in 2004 but, aside from smaller projects like the deck, new carpet, paint and refinishing the floors, the house hadn’t undergone a major overhaul since 1988.

The Project: Completely renovate the full bath – new walls and heated floor, tub/shower, add double sink vanity. Upgrade the electrical, install central A/C, upgrade the circa 1950′s Sears oil furnace to natural gas. Move washer and dryer from basement to top floor by building a new closet in the hallway upstairs. Replace drywall in wall and ceiling in two rooms because of a leaky roof; add a coat closet downstairs; replace front, back and interior doors. Plus a million other little things – you never know what you’ll find when you start taking down the plaster walls in a house that is more than 100 years old. Oh, and top it all off with a fresh coat of paint.

The Contractor: H3 Renovations, LLC is owned and operated by Carlos Herrera. Since 2000, H3 has been a residential and commercial general contractor of choice for everything from minor renovations to new construction in DC, Virginia and Maryland. Carlos is a genial entrepreneur who has lead more than one small business. He employs several professionals split into different crews for H3′s various client locations, but he always has the last say on any project.

The Client: Me, a business owner with a home office and someone used to HAVING clients, not being one. I started getting estimates in October 2008; I compared estimates ruthlessly and narrowed my options down to two by December. I then proceeded to pour over the estimates, ask a million questions and negotiate the final project so that we got most of what we wanted and were mostly within our budget. Once I settled on H3 it was early January 2009, so we waited for the Obama inauguration hubbub to subside and then turned our home over to Carlos.

Each of the next 10 posts will highlight what I learned from Carlos and his team at H3 about successfully managing a client relationship. There are no huge revelations here but, though these are simple ideas, I find they are still challenging to execute and, particularly, to execute consistently and in combination with each other. So, I hope this series is enlightening or at minimum entertaining. Even if it isn’t, take solace in the fact that it will be much, much shorter than the renovation itself.

Coming up this summer …

This has been a very busy year for Black Lab and though I haven’t been terribly bloggy of late, it isn’t for lack of material. So, here’s a bit of a sneak peek of what is coming up this summer:

Business Lessons I Learned From My Contractor: An 11-post series on the practical but oh-so-important things I learned about the provider-client relationship from working with a general contractor to renovate my house the past 5 months. Yep, 5 months. It explains a lot about my state of mind of late. This one will be starting next week and last throughout June.

Living Local: 31 Days on Capitol Hill: I’m a big fan of supporting the local community so for the month of July, I’ll be putting my money where my mouth is by exclusively shopping my neighborhood — lovely Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. There will be regular blogs about the businesses and people I encounter during my experiment as well as daily Tweets from @SCLinDC.

The Motivator: Ever feel like you’re talking to a brick wall when trying to motivate co-workers or employees? Especially during the highly distracting, “but the weather is so nice out” summertime? I’ll have a special guest tell us how he not only gets people excited about their day, but he does it at 6:30 in the morning!

Design Matters: Remember the generic canned food with the white label and black print that just said stuff like “CREAM CORN” or “GREEN BEANS”? This is what always went through my mind: “That doesn’t look like it tastes very good.” How something looks plays a huge part in how we perceive it … and how much we are willing to pay. I’ll have a graphic designer tell us about why design really does matter.

I’m also very excited to be part of a new project: The Hill is Home. This new blog will feature hyperlocal content for the Capitol Hill neighborhood. We are just getting started, but we already have a great group of contributors with amazing experience. I’ll be covering some business issues, so go check it out!