The HGTV experience with Jason Bliss: Benchmark Construction

Tom Houghton:

You’re listening to “The Building Code.” I’m Tom Houghton.

Paul Wurth:

I’m Paul Wurth.

Tom Houghton:

We’ll get started with our guest in just a second, but first want to tell you about the last opportunity to attend Buildertrend University in 2019, our last 2019 BTU is scheduled for December 11th and 12th in Omaha, Nebraska at Buildertrend headquarters. This two day onsite event is a great way to get out of your business, to work on your business. All meals are included while you’re here, and it’s a great opportunity to increase your knowledge and usage of Buildertrend to maximize your business for 2020. You can find out more and register today at buildertrendu.com.

Tom Houghton:

On today’s episode of ”The Building Code,” we’re joined by Jason Bliss, owner of Benchmark Construction based in Danville, California, near the Bay Area. We are going to talk about working with Drew Scott from Brother Versus Brother on HGTV and Bay area trends and construction. Welcome Jason to the podcast.

Jason Bliss:

Thanks for having me guys appreciate it.

Tom Houghton:

Let’s dive in and talk about… Give us a background on your company first. So tell us about how many homes you do, what type of construction you’re doing and we’ll go from there.

Jason Bliss:

Okay. Yeah, we’re primarily a remodeling contractor. We have recently started transitioning into more design build projects. So we are trying to transition out of just that kitchen or that bathroom and coming in at the latter stages of just being a competitive bid and trying to focus more on clients that are looking to work with us from start to finish.

Jason Bliss:

So rather than bringing us in at the tail-end and having to make a lot of adjustments, we really try to capture that client from when they actually start thinking about doing the project so that we can bring our architect in, our designers, our engineers, and actually value engineer the project to what, A, their budget is, and ultimately what they want to accomplish. A lot of times what was happening in the past with us, was that, they would go out, build their dream project, bring us a set of plans and say, “Okay, do this for $150,000.” When realistically it’s probably a three to $400,000 project that the architect had designed. So we were coming up against a lot of that and so working with coaches that we have, we decided to start getting out… Putting the cart before the horse a little bit and just help to steer things. So all that to say, remodeling, design build, that’s our sweet spot.

Tom Houghton:

Awesome.

Paul Wurth:

That’s actually something we just went through in our most recent podcast before this one, which was, they were talking about how sometimes your prospects or your future clients come with unrealistic expectations of the cost of a job. And how do you navigate those waters of the conversation? Are you just brutally honest? Or do you try to do the job for less? Which probably isn’t the best way to go. But you’re saying you’re trying to circumvent that entire conversation and just try to get started with them in the design phase, where you can set those expectations for the cost of the job.

Jason Bliss:

Right. And that’s one of our biggest components. So we created a pre-sales appointment questionnaire, and that’s one of the… A couple of questions on there is, “Do you have a budget? If so, what is your budget? Are you working with a designer? What are some of the key components that you’re looking for in the relationship?” And that really helps us set up for that first initial meeting. And also, it helps us save a lot of time, that if somebody is asking to do a kitchen addition and they’ve got a budget of $75,000, we know right off the bat, it’s probably either not a good fit or they need some more hand holding. And we’ll reach back out and find out what that looks like for them. And sometimes we’ll just agree that, “Hey, we’re probably not the best fit for you, but best luck in your endeavors.”

Tom Houghton:

Sure. That’s smart. So let’s talk about your experience with HGTV since you’re a hot star of the show there. So you guys worked on a season, is this correct? You worked on a season of “Brother Versus Brother.” You worked with Drew Scott, one of the brothers.

Jason Bliss:

Right.

Paul Wurth:

Team Drew.

Tom Houghton:

#TeamDrew.

Paul Wurth:

As it were.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah. So could you give us a background into that for the listeners who maybe didn’t catch that show?

Jason Bliss:

Yeah, absolutely. I was actually originally contacted by a realtor that we work with here locally. She gives us quite a few referrals, and she was the one that actually was approached by the property brothers to handle the purchase and the sell of the two properties that they would ultimately purchase and then turn around and sell. And then she gave our name along with, I think, about five or six other contractors for HGTV to interview for working with them. And so I got the call, went out to Berkeley and met with their production team. And that was a little intimidating, I’ll be honest, I don’t consider myself to be overly camera friendly. So in-person, I felt really good until they got to the point where they then pulled out their iPhone and they wanted to do some kind of test filming and asking questions, kind of like what you guys are doing.

Jason Bliss:

And it was a little nerve wracking, but the good thing, by that point was, I felt really comfortable with them. They really bought into the idea of our company, which is meaning, my brother and I are partners in the company and so they really liked the idea of a couple of brothers working with one of the brothers. So that, I think, gave us a leg up on it. But all that to say, once we got approved with them… Ironically, I originally got the call from Jonathan that we were going to be Team Jonathan. And my wife and I are actually… We were driving down the road and Jonathan’s calling us and kind of looking like, “Is this really happening?” And talked to Jonathan, thought we were going to be working with him. I started bagging a little bit on Drew for being a realtor [crosstalk].

Paul Wurth:

Oopsie daisy.

Jason Bliss:

And then the next week, actually got a call back saying, “Hey, you guys are a little better set up for what some of Drew’s needs are. So because you guys have such a strong team element, we’re going to put you with Drew and we’ve got a great designer that’s got a great team and you guys are going to be Team Drew and…” So I didn’t set off on the right foot, necessarily, with Drew, but he handled it really well. Those guys are just really great guys, super professional, don’t hold grudges or anything like that. They’re just a lot of fun to work with, but all that… So getting into that, we originally got to see the house right before Christmas, for the first time. We went out with the designers and we walked in and we were a little blown away with how much work needed to be done and knowing the local market, I knew about what they were probably purchasing that property for and knowing how much they were going to have to put into it, to get a turnaround, I was really concerned.

Jason Bliss:

Because we do work a lot with real estate clients, I’m always conscious of trying to see where their budget’s going to take them. Especially, if they’re going to be flipping the house, which they were both. I got really concerned right off the bat. But when they came in, they ultimately saw this vision of what they wanted that house to look like. So in our situation it was a single story rancher in part of the suburbs and they wanted to go California, modern rancher. That was the design element that they were seeking. And it’s a hybrid of a lot of things and it’s a tough look to pull off, especially with the home that we were dealing with, that was originally built in the late ‘60s, had the original owner living it the entire time, smoked cigarettes in the home, the entire 40-plus years in the home. So there was a lot of work ahead of us.

Speaker 4:

Wow. That sounds like a lot of work.

Paul Wurth:

That sounds like a lot of work. What season was this? I assume its a…

Jason Bliss:

Okay, so this was season six. So it was right here, San Francisco Bay area. And that was the big thing was, they really wanted to get after that Bay area market. Originally, I know that they had obviously wanted to purchase in San Francisco. San Francisco is just not a flip market, it’s way too expensive. Then I believe they went out to Oakland next because that’s a really up and coming kind of thing. Brooklyn to New York City, that’s kind of how Oakland is to San Francisco to some degree. But even Oakland was really expensive to try to get something that they could work with. So they actually ended up going a little bit further into the suburbs in order to find the price points that they were looking to get. But yeah, season six, San Francisco Bay area.

Paul Wurth:

When did this air? When was your…?

Jason Bliss:

So this aired… It started last May and it was six episodes. So starting in May, episode one was them picking the houses, ultimately walking the homes for the first time, seeing what it was that they were going to be working with. And then ultimately we ended up doing the living room challenge. And then each of the shows thereafter was broken into an area where each part of the home was treated as a design challenge.

Jason Bliss:

So Episode 1 was the picking out the house and then the living room and the living room challenge design, we won that one. The second design challenge was actually the kitchen and unfortunately Jonathan won that one, but subsequently, the episodes after that were the master bedroom suite, the guest areas, and then what they call the annex spaces, meaning areas that they built into, to pick up some square footage for the home. In which case, we actually built an ADU below the home and into the Hill. So we actually ended up adding about 650 square feet to the home and we won that design challenge. So of the five design challenges, we won four of those five, but ultimately episode six was the, who could sell their home for the most given the budget that they were given, and Jonathan won by a couple of thousand dollars.

Tom Houghton:

You put air quotes for the… I mean, the listeners can’t see you, but you put air quotes in, that they “Won.”

Paul Wurth:

No, he air-quoted John.

Jason Bliss:

So people ask us all the time, “Okay, what was that really like?” Because I used to run into this a lot in meeting with homeowners before having done the show, and they talked about, “Well, I’d really like to get my kitchen done for $25,000. I saw it on HGTV on another show in Texas.” And I would always have this comeback like, “Well, that’s Texas, you can’t do the same thing here in the Bay area.” But what I found is, actually, it has nothing to do with the geography. It really has a lot to do with… It’s the magic of TV and what they said that they spent, I’m not going to say that it wasn’t accurate, but I’m not going to say that it was completely accurate.

Tom Houghton:

It’s not a hundred percent.

Paul Wurth:

Uh oh, controversy.

Tom Houghton:

You heard it first on “The Building Code.”

Paul Wurth:

TMZ we’re coming.

Tom Houghton:

Or tabloids. Watch out.

Jason Bliss:

Let’s not get HGTV on the line, please.

Paul Wurth:

We’ll bleep that out.

Jason Bliss:

So I think, ultimately, the split was somewhere around two or $3,000 difference. And Jonathan just happened to pull out the win with the sales price.

Tom Houghton:

That’s pretty close.

Paul Wurth:

So you won the battles, lost the war.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

That’s okay.

Jason Bliss:

Exactly.

Paul Wurth:

I guess, the one thing I wanted to know most for our listeners is, how has this affected your business post airing of the show and whether that’s incoming leads or, like what you mentioned, maybe some unrealistic expectations of, because you built that kitchen on the show and now you’re asking for a lot more money than they thought. How’s that been for you?

Jason Bliss:

Yeah, the funny thing… It was great for us locally because we certainly did our best to try and tie in a lot of marketing and different PR opportunities. So we hosted a viewing party at a local restaurant right next to us, we had a hundred of our realtors and clients and people come out and support us, and family. And so we really took advantage of the marketing aspect of it. But then we also did… And realtors that, maybe we didn’t have a foot in with, or developers that we didn’t have a foot in with before, now all of a sudden, we had some credibility, we had some weight behind us and they actually took it a step further to say, “Well, you should only work with our contractor. Our contractor who’s been on TV, by the way, it is the only person we ever refer to.”

Jason Bliss:

So they were even jumping on the bandwagon with us, which was fine, we were fine with that. But I will say, we did get an influx of calls within the first couple of weeks of people wanting to flip homes and not having a lot of budget. And so we certainly had to weed through those. And it was frustrating, because it’s like, “Well, great. We did all this great high-end work, we’re all over the country now on TV and we’re getting all these low budget projects calling us and wanting to do stuff with us.” It certainly wasn’t our intent. But fast forward, six months, a year, almost a year and a half later now, not only has it boosted our portfolio, but we have so much more credibility within the marketplace.

Jason Bliss:

People are seeing us as industry experts where, personally, I didn’t feel like we were. But now all of a sudden, other people are looking to us, looking for guidance on things or, “How would you go about doing this?” So, I guess from that standpoint, even though we did lose some money doing the project, and I guess if anybody was looking to do work on TV, certainly mind your change orders. And Buildertrend’s great at managing change orders.

Paul Wurth:

There you go.

Jason Bliss:

I wish I would’ve had Buildertrend when we were doing the show. Because we certainly would have managed our change orders a lot better. But that would be my biggest thing, for people that are thinking that they’d like to do some work like that. Be mindful of the change orders, those are certainly the ones that will come back and bite you in the butt. And while we did lose a pretty good chunk of money, I would consider it the best TV commercial that we could have never purchased.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

That’s a marketing expense, right?

Tom Houghton:

Absolutely. I was going to ask, now that you know, on the backside, the return, was it worth the investment of your time and all the effort? Because I’m assuming too, there was logistical stuff during the shoot that was probably not standard of how you would typically do a remodel. Maybe you could share your thoughts on that.

Jason Bliss:

Yeah, it certainly… It challenged us because prior to the show, we actually self-performed a lot of our own work. And based on the schedule that the TV show had given us, basically they were asking us to do what should have been at least a seven or eight month project, to get done in about three and a half months. So we very quickly realized we were going to have to sub out quite a bit of that work. And unfortunately, we were subbing out things that we typically did in the past. And so that certainly hurt us when it came to managing costs, managing the schedule, because we were going into the show thinking, “Okay, we could self-perform almost all of this and we could manage our schedule and we could manage our costs and we’d be fine.” But we very quickly found that, not only could we not manage the sub schedules, but because the magic of TV and I’m using air quotes, when they filmed on this particular show and I think it’s a little bit different than other shows, but they really value the quality of the production.

Jason Bliss:

And so every time they would film, any jackhammering, framing, anything that had ambient noise going on in the background, all production had to be stopped while they were filming. I mean, to the degree that there was a train that would come nearby about three or four times a day, and every time that train passed through, they stopped filming. It was that degree. So imagine managing somebody else’s production schedule and then add into it, somebody managing yours and limiting every bit of management that you thought you had.

Tom Houghton:

This is the joys of filming right here.

Jason Bliss:

That’s right.

Tom Houghton:

Good stuff.

Jason Bliss:

But, I will say, it was fun. And I guess, the biggest thing… Well I will say that the investment, while it seemed for those first six months, that it wasn’t going to pay off, absolutely has paid off. I know that we’ll make that money back over time simply because of what we have gained in the production of it. But I will say also, my sales ability, my in-person meetings with clients… You want to talk for filming constantly for three and a half to four months. I mean, having to repeat and correct and do all of these things right. I would consider my sales pitch, I got that down pretty good now. I say, if I was able to do it in front of millions of people on TV, I can handle a living room, I can handle a kitchen, I can handle a in-person meeting with just a couple of people. And that’s not me being arrogant, I just know that my speaking skills have gotten significantly better having gone through three to four months worth of filming.

Paul Wurth:

That’s interesting. That’s quite the takeaway there that we don’t really think about.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah. Personal development from it.

Paul Wurth:

Presentation skills in the kitchen, those are the things we talk about a lot, but we never dive into actually getting better at that. Maybe like a Toastmasters or something like that. Speech class. That could be good for somebody, personal development.

Tom Houghton:

Absolutely.

Paul Wurth:

Do it in front of your wife and your kids.

Jason Bliss:

Absolutely, I would highly recommend it.

Paul Wurth:

There you go. That’s a good takeaway.

Tom Houghton:

That’s good. Let’s transition really quick, just to talk about maybe one or two Bay Area-trends that you’re seeing… Because I know you said that you specialize in Bay Area-style, is kind of what you’ve said. So give us some trends or try to encompass what that style means for our listeners

Jason Bliss:

Because of our location within the Bay Area, a lot of people view San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, these highly contemporary areas. The interesting thing is, through the tunnel over where we’re at, I would consider more transitional. But everybody’s take on transitional is different. And so I guess, what I’ve come to find in a Bay Area-style, is that people want to be able to blend different styles seamlessly. So you might have the light and the bright of a contemporary, but they also want very cozy. They want some traditional aspects built into their projects. So everybody’s wanting these white, bright cabinets and light colored countertops, but at the same time, you don’t want to create an operating room out of your kitchen.

Jason Bliss:

So we’ve got to find ways to warm it up, we’ve got to bring in some warm tones, we’ve got to bring in some of the… Even the gold metals or the bronze metals or… Something that will warm and make it a little bit more cozy because I think sometimes, as much as I like contemporary and modern, it can seem very sterile. And out where we’re at, a little bit more in the suburbs, people are looking for something cozy. So I would say various styles, kind of light, bright and cozy.

Jason Bliss:

It’s got to have a mixture of those elements that makes a person want to come home. Because a lot of these people who are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, they’re making good money but they’re in offices or cubes all day. They want to come home and they want to have something comfortable. They want to have something to resort home to. And so I would even say that, in that Bay Area-style, we’ve been incorporating outdoor more into the home. People are wanting that integration between in-home living and having their outdoor living, a lot of people have great backyards and we’re starting to incorporate that outdoor living more into our projects.

Tom Houghton:

Awesome. Well, we’d love to throw some photos of some of your recent projects up on the show notes and we’ll also put links into the Brother Versus Brother episodes on the show notes. So our listeners can take a look there to find the specific episodes and watch the drama unfold.

Paul Wurth:

That sounds great.

Tom Houghton:

So thank you so much for coming on the podcast today and sharing your experience with HGTV and also just the trends, we love hearing about that. Thanks for your time and sharing your industry knowledge. We, of course, wish you continued success in your business, and thanks for using Buildertrend.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah.

Jason Bliss:

All right, guys. Thanks so much. Appreciate the software.

Paul Wurth:

Thanks Jason. Yeah, come on up and see us in Omaha sometime, just bring a parka.

Jason Bliss:

Maybe in the summer time.

Paul Wurth:

There you go. That sounds good.

Tom Houghton:

Smart move.

Paul Wurth:

Okay. Appreciate you. Thanks.

Tom Houghton:

Love what you heard? Don’t forget to rate and subscribe to our podcast so you can hear from more guests that will benefit your business. Also, please check out our show notes page for more information on what we discussed on this episode. You can find it at buildertrend.com/podcast. Thanks for listening and we’ll see you next time on “The Building Code.” Appreciate you.