How To Build Trust With Your Home Remodeling Contractor

Do you trust your car? 

When I say trust, do you trust your car to take you from one location to another?

Do you trust it to keep you safe on your journey from place to place? 

Do you trust that it will hold up over the years of traveling? 

We trust ourselves to drive our cars with safety and awareness, but it requires another level of trust in the car itself to deliver on all those important things. 

When it comes time to take care of your car, who do you trust?

Most of us know how to turn the car on and off, maybe change the windshield wiper fluid or swap a spent lightbulb. But what happens when that check engine light comes on?

Who do you trust to take care of it? 

Sure, you might know a few local shops that have some knowledge about your specific vehicle but the options are limited. That’s inherently risky. That risk could lead to bigger issues and a longer waiting period that leaves you with no form of transportation. 

Or you can take it to a certified dealership that knows everything about your car. From every nut and bolt to each intricate part of the engine, these dealerships have deep knowledge and experience working on vehicles like yours. They’ve built relationships with suppliers to get the needed materials in a timely manner so that you can get back on the road. 

In regard to trust, you want to know that the team working on your car is confident and competent. Certified dealerships hire highly-skilled mechanics who know cars better than your neighbor down the street who spends his Saturdays with his head stuffed into the front of his 2008 Ford Explorer.

So I’ll pose the same question for your home…

Who do you trust?

Trust is a crucial component when it comes to remodeling your home. Trust is built through communication, experience, and preparedness. While you might trust the word of your friend who hired the local handyman to fix a light socket in their home, can you trust them to demo an entire wall, install new cabinets, route your plumbing, and make sure that your new kitchen is flawless?

That’s why hiring a remodeling contractor that emphasizes project management is important. 

Allow me to explain…

Project Management Is About Trust.

Most people hear the words “project management” and think of business proposals, project timelines, budgets, and deliverables—and you would be correct in thinking that.

But when I talk about project management, I’m talking about much more than that.

Project management is about trust. Trust that the remodeling contractor you’re hiring is competent and confident in their ability to deliver your project on time, on budget, and above the standard. 

This means that your remodeling contractor communicates clearly, and is aligned with your goals. We can all agree the primary goal is to complete your project, but there’s more to that.

Maybe your personal goal is to complete the project before the big family reunion you are hosting at your house in the fall. Maybe your goal is to finish that bedroom addition before your first grandbaby is born so that mom and dad have their own space to take care of their newborn in peace.

These goals vary from project to project but are the true goals behind your remodeling project. 

Great remodeling contractors ask questions that open up the avenue of communication to truly understand those goals. From there, they use those goals as the north star for your project. They structure your project around these goals, set expectations, and clearly convey how they are going to get you to that goal.

This aligns you, the homeowner’s goals, with the goals of the contractor, cementing a firm foundation of trust between both of you. Let’s talk about building trust…

Trust Is Built Through Experience.

With your goals aligned, the next step in building trust is knowing that your remodeling contractor is experienced.

Back to my car analogy…

Imagine taking your brand new BMW 5 series to an amateur mechanic who’s only worked on old Ford Broncos. Chances are they have very little experience working on new performance cars. This lack of experience could lead to mistakes that put the integrity of your vehicle in jeopardy.

The same goes for your home remodeling project.

You want to know that your remodeling contractor has experience not just swinging a hammer, but planning projects, hiring the right subcontractors, purchasing materials, and holding everyone accountable to do their jobs well. 

That said, strong project management is built on the shoulders of experience. Remodeling contractors with a solid project management system have been doing it for years and built relationships with other trusted partners, have a successful backlog of projects they’re willing to share with homeowners, and have reliable client testimonials that speak for themselves. 

This experience ensures that when changes happen or situations arise, your remodeling contractor is not reactive but rather responsive.

This leads to my third point…

Experience Lends To Preparedness.

As I mentioned before, every homeowner wants their project to be completed on time, within the budget, and above the standard. With that said, trust and experience are two major factors that lend to preparedness—and one can only be prepared through planning.

As legendary boxer Mike Tyson says, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.” 

I like to think of every remodeling project like this in the sense that we can do as much planning as a boxer does before a fight. They study the opponent, learn their weaknesses, and train to expose them, but the reality is that more likely than not, they’re still going to get socked in the face once or twice.

With home remodeling projects, we survey the current situation, learn about the needs and desires of the homeowner, and prepare a plan that clearly explains how we are going to bring their vision to life. Even with all that planning, there’s still an opportunity to get punched in the face with an unforeseen problem.

Maybe the home has a rat’s nest of electrical tucked behind a sink installed 30 years ago. Maybe there’s a gas line hidden under a floorboard that accidentally gets hit while the new floor is being installed. All of these situations are unforeseen circumstances that can impact the timeline and success of a project.

I can’t tell you how many homes I’ve worked on where the owner decided to take on a DIY remodeling project and then stumbled into one of these circumstances. That’s a knockout punch to the face that leaves the homeowner with more problems than when they started.

For certified home remodeling contractors like us, we’ve been socked in the face more than a few times with problems and have learned how to mitigate them with the swift smoothness of Muhammad Ali. More often than not, we can solve these problems in a matter of minutes without adding stress to the homeowner’s already stressful life.

This means your project continues to move forward on time, within budget, and above the standard. 

So what does all this mean in relation to project management?

All of these elements contribute to strong project management and can be the key differentiator between a successful remodeling project and failure. 

Project management is the foundation, all of the deliverables and results are shaped around it. 

When it comes to your home, you don’t want the foundation to be shaky, otherwise, everything else will falter, leaving you with a space built on sand instead of stones.

That’s why we focus heavily on project management in all aspects of our business. Because we want our clients to know that we care about them and their needs. We care so much that we’ve been very intentional to build a project management system that serves them first. 

So I’ll ask the question one more time…

Who can you trust? 

You can trust us to bring your vision to life and make your home a better place to live.