When you are looking for a licensed general contractor near you one of the first things you might look up is how to choose a general contractor, kitchen remodeler, or bathroom remodeler. a bunch of blog posts will come up from listings like Angie’s List or home advisors and they all have the same lame advice. ask for references, make sure they do good work, look at reviews, and see photos of their work.
Something more important that you should look at with all of these as many companies will have all these is what drives that company’s decision-making process. we call these core values at SPC Design and Build, we spent countless days not only deciding what our core values would be but how we would Implement those core values into every aspect of our business from who we hire, to how we treat our clients, to how we evaluate everyone’s performance.
Even more important than finding out what drives a company’s decision-making process is examples of how they have used those Core values in specific real-life examples. In this case study, I want to take the time to break down certain real-life events that happen and how we use our core values to make sure our clients were raving fans of us.
Extreme Ownership
We all make mistakes when we make them we own up to them and work together to make sure they don’t happen again.
To us, extreme ownership is all about owning up to your mistakes and being forthcoming when they happen. A great example of how we showed extreme ownership to one of our clients is when we installed the wrong style of door in our Bathroom Remodel in Orinda California.
Now the door style was just slightly different from the remaining house and the owner may have never noticed or cared about the difference between the doors, but instead of trying to hide or convince the owner to keep the new doors we immediately notified them of the error we had made and had them removed and installed the correct doors we said we would in the agreement. No change order, no additional cost to the client, no b.s. Just owning up to our mistake and making sure it was corrected.
Respect
We respect each other and our clients by listening and taking care of our environment.
To us, respect is shown in many ways from making sure we do not interrupt each other to showing up on time. The primary way we show respect to our clients is by taking care of their homes throughout the remodeling process. We leave our job site clean and organized daily, not weekly, like some companies or never all, like those nightmare stories we hear about. We also preach to all of our project managers, superintendents, carpenters, and subcontractors that if you see a piece of trash off to the side just simply go pick it up, even if it’s not ours or even related to the project.
The example I like to share of this is exactly what I mentioned earlier on our whole house remodel in Moraga California. One of our project managers noticed a water bottle had rolled down the hill from the client’s gardener who was there earlier in the day for their weekly schedule. Instead of shrugging his shoulders and walking away he climbed down the hill and picked up the water bottle and threw it away never mentioning it to anyone. We only found out because our client shared the security footage with us from the event.
Attention To Detail
We ensure the highest quality product by paying attention to the small things.
To us, we think perfection lies in the smallest detail from the very beginning of design and material selections all the way to the techniques and tools used to install the product. We have a vigorous quality check system in place for every aspect of your project from putting in blocking behind the drywall to ensure your wall fixtures are screwed into something solid, to ensuring our tile is even with no lippage or unevenness, even down to making sure the screws on your outlet and switch covers are vertically aligned.
A great example of our attention to detail comes from one of our lead carpenters on our new custom home build in Danville California. Now this man has what we like to call a laser eye, he sees every little detail possible from the good to the bad. In this particular situation as we were installing a porcelain vanity top and sink he noticed a very small chip on the back side that was just ever so slightly visible, something that could be easily not be seen. But because of his laser eye, we were able to promptly order a vanity top and sink.
Collaboration
We communicate with each other and work together to accomplish our goals.
Collaboration is key to a successful kitchen remodel, bathroom remodel, or home addition. We want to collaborate with not only each other in the office but with our field crews doing the actual work on how we can better deliver value to our clients. We also want to collaborate with our clients during the entire process, not just at the beginning of the design phase or at the end when we ask what your thoughts are. Communication is key at all times to make sure we are all on the same page about the project from start to finish.
A good example of this is on our Addition in Walnut Creek California. This was a very large project that was not only adding square footage to the home but also included adding two ADU’s attached to the main house. This required a lot of collaboration from not only our client but also our trusted partners on the architectural and engineering side also collaborating with the old contractor our client had previously hired in order to complete the design, submit the permits, answer comments from the building department and getting the project started.
Honesty and Integrity
Doing what is right by doing what we say we are going to do.
To us, honesty and integrity are most vital when you show it even when no one would know if you did or not. When we say we are going to install a certain faucet we will be installing that faucet, not the look-alike that is half the cost from home depot. When we say we will perform a job for a certain price then we will perform that job for that price not a penny more.
A good example of this is from our kitchen remodel in Lafayette California, about three months after we had completed the job and the client was happy with the work we had our bookkeeper call us and notify us that the client had overpaid us $1,000. Without a second thought, we immediately called the client and explained what had happened and apologized profusely, and had a cashier’s check overnighted to them for the $1,000. The client had no idea they overpaid, but it did not matter to us because we always make sure to do the right thing.
Conclusion
We use our core values on a daily basis whenever we are confronted with a decision we need to make. Rather it is choosing the right candidate to hire, offering a new service, or conducting day-to-day business they are our guiding stars to make sure we are always making the right decisions.