Driving a referral-based business

Show Notes

Greg Wamhoffโ€™s not worried about his next sale because his residential construction business in Tomball, Texas, has a self-sustaining sales engine: their finished work.

Nine of every ten clients come referred to his company, Wamhoff Design|Build.

On this episode of โ€œThe Building Code,โ€ Zach and Charley learn how Greg turned a few jobs into a company that finishes 50 custom homes a year.

Referrals power Gregโ€™s business, and heโ€™s sharing his tips for setting up tomorrowโ€™s deal on todayโ€™s job site.

What has being a referral-based business looked like at your company?

โ€œUntil a year or two ago, we didn’t put any effort on social marketing or social media. And to that point, we have never done paid marketing. We never did it. And I think if you’re doing business right, especially in a growing market like Texas, you shouldn’t have to. Right? But I would say our referral hovers right around 90% plus or minus. Really rare we get a project that comes from another source like social media or some other avenue where somebody sees us. I joked forever in our company, we didn’t even put signs out when we were doing projects. If somebody wants me, they’re going to go knock on that guyโ€™s door and say, โ€˜Hey, you’re doing a project. Who’s doing it?โ€™ Right? So, brand awareness is, I guess, for some companies it’s important. Ours is more relational capital. Relationships are what’s important for us.โ€

What’s the best advice you received on building a successful business?

โ€œAn early mentor of mine one time said to me that if you just hired great people, your business will take care of itself. And I truly believe that today still. It’s really about the people. Over time, as we started putting a few people together to build the company, it centered around that same feeling I had the first time, which is I love our customers. I care about our customers, and we want to do a great job for them. And I think that was evident through some of the first relationships and employees we had, just shared that common thread. And that’s what really motivated us and drove us into this business.โ€

Related content:

Read more about Wamhoff Design|Buildโ€™s success here, and donโ€™t forget to check out the tree farmer Greg mentioned.

Curious about Buildertrend Onsite Consulting? Learn more about our premier training service here.

Miss our last minisode? Listen now to hear how user feedback drives Buildertrendโ€™s product and the team powering it.

Catch our next โ€œInside Buildertrendโ€ minisode next week.

Subscribe to โ€œThe Building Code,โ€ and never miss an episode.

Got podcast topic suggestions? Reach out to us at podcast@buildertrend.com.

The Better Way, a podcast by Buildertrend:

Looking to improve how your team plans projects with the worldโ€™s No. 1 construction management software? Pick up Buildertrend project planning pro tips on the newest season of โ€œThe Better Way, a podcast by Buildertrend.โ€ Subscribe and stream all of these bingeable episodes on your favorite listening app now.

Follow us on social:

Instagram and Facebook

Listen to โ€œThe Building Codeโ€ on YouTube! And be sure to head over to Facebook to join The Building Code Crew fan page for some fun discussions with fellow listeners.

Transcript

Zach Wojtowicz:

It’s the Building Code, Zach Wojtowicz here.

Charley Burtwistle:

I’m Charley Burtwistle.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Post-IBS Building Code episode.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell me all about it. How much fun was it?

Zach Wojtowicz:

If you caught our pre IBS episode, you know Charley wasn’t able to go. You were missed dearly, first off.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah, I’m sure.

Zach Wojtowicz:

We wanted you to be there.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah, yeah.

Zach Wojtowicz:

It was a great time as IBS always is. It was my first time, but I’ve heard from many, many of our employees that it is one of the best events. So it was an honor to be there. Met a lot of great builders, saw a lot of different vendors. And honestly, when our episode pre IBS, where we talked with Cardinal Crest and Jkath, they talked about kind of the experience and have an open mind, go explore, all those things and that’s kind of how I took it. And I came away with hoping that I can go again, frankly. Maybe next year they’ll send you instead of me.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know the feeling. Well, fantastic to have you back in Nebraska. We, here in Omaha also miss you dearly.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Not true.

Charley Burtwistle:

But we’re back in the studio, super excited. Tell the listeners who we got today, Zach.

Zach Wojtowicz:

So we have someone on the podcast that I actually have a relationship.

Charley Burtwistle:

Special guest.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Special guest. I was an onsite consultant, as we’ve talked about many times prior to not being an onsite consultant. And I actually…

Charley Burtwistle:

Becoming a podcast host?

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yes. And we did this visit down, kind of in March, 2019, with Greg Wamhoff from Wamhoff Design Build. And it was kind of a one day trip. We kind of used to kind have different lengths of time and we really got into their processes and all the things that Buildertrend can do. And so we thought, let’s find builders who are kind of involved in different ways that they generate business and we didn’t really plan it, but Greg ended up being on the list for this. And they reached out and they’re like, “Greg’s going to be on the podcast.” So I’m excited to see him and catch up. I’m sure we’ll get pretty nostalgic and all the fun things about what those visits were like. They’re kind of a whirlwind. If you ever have done it onsite and you’re a listener, you know what I’m talking about. It’s a lot of work, but yeah, I think we should get him on here and get to talk about how he does referrals with his business.

Charley Burtwistle:

Absolutely. Greg, welcome to โ€œThe Building Code.โ€

Zach Wojtowicz:

It’s good to see you. I said in the opener that we have a bit of a relationship here. So hopefully you’ll be nice to me throughout the interview process.

Greg Wamhoff:

Yeah. Well, I’m going to poke you back right out the gate. So Wamhoff’s been, it’s my whole life. “Wamhoff on the play,” is what they said at the football stadium, but it’s actually Wamhoff, so. It’s the German way.

Zach Wojtowicz:

No, no.

Charley Burtwistle:

No, we’re keeping that for sure. I mean, Zach always talks about how great of a consultant he was, so I think getting a live review here would be fantastic. And the mispronunciation of the name’s a great way to start.

Greg Wamhoff:

It’s all right. If Zach was quick on his feet, heโ€™d make him say his last name.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I was just about to go there. I was going to say, “All right, your turn on the Wojtowicz.

Charley Burtwistle:

But fantastic to have you on, Greg. For our listeners, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you kind of ultimately took the dive from kind of your corporate job into the residential building space.

Greg Wamhoff:

Yeah. So I went to school and got a construction management degree from Michigan State. Got one of those big, fancy corporate jobs right out the gate, which I thought paid me a lot of money. Spent two years at a corporate company, quickly learned that is not my cup of tea. So was fortunate to have some really good mentors early on in my business life. And a couple of those guys were entrepreneurs and they kind of gave me a little bit of inspiration to believe in myself and go for it. And kind of one thing led to another and before you know it, I had my first job remodeling a kitchen for some people that I still love today. And that was 12 and a half years ago, so been a wild ride ever since.

Charley Burtwistle:

So was that something that you… I mean, because you’re the founder, so you didn’t get hired it at a job. You just quit your current job and just kind of dove in headfirst?

Greg Wamhoff:

Yep. That’s exactly right. I joke at the beginning, and my wife and I were young, and I was 25 years old. We didn’t have any money. We had our first house and a $5,000 credit card and I looked at her and said, “Let’s give it a shot.” My dad at the time, who had worked for the same company for 30 years, told me I was at of my freaking mind, but he’s probably right. But I joke that almost all entrepreneurs have to be a little stupid and crazy or they wouldn’t be entrepreneurs, so.

Zach Wojtowicz:

And I’ve seen it with my own eyes, incredible facility down there. It’s really interesting because I distinctly remember on our visit, the tree operation that is, I’m look out your window now, out in Tomball, Texas. They move trees all over the country and stuff. And you have this beautiful property that your office is in now. I feel like there’s a special connection about why you chose that area. Is there?

Greg Wamhoff:

Yeah. Yeah. So actually the Tree Farmer as he calls himself, he’s one of my mentors. He’s been a very successful business guy, self-made and he became a mentor. And as we were searching for a bigger office, kind of stumbled upon this idea that he had this old house on the back of the tree farm. And then once we came out here, we just kind of fell in love with it and said, “Let’s make this our home.” So shout to Tom, Treemover.com is a plug. He’s awesome and he’s been a good friend of mine for a long time now.

Zach Wojtowicz:

We better get a new subscriber based on the plug.

Greg Wamhoff:

Well, they’re doing projects all over the world and I think I did show him Buildertrend one time and he’s like, “This stuff is awesome.” And I’m like, “I know, that’s why we use them.”

Charley Burtwistle:

So then how did you go from entrepreneur, doing this remodel for a friend to scaling your business to having this awesome location and you build kind of all across the Gulf Coast all the way through Austin. I know the topic of this episode is all about referral-based businesses and I know that that’s been instrumental to you. Could you tell us a little bit about, “Okay. From day one, I’m remodeling this kitchen and now I run this big residential building space.” How’s that journey been?

Greg Wamhoff:

Yeah, absolutely. I think in hindsight, everybody kind of has their bucket to fill, their why. What they want to get up in the morning for and for whatever reason for me, I loved this idea that somebody would trust me enough to come into their home and build a project. That just, that made me feel good. I loved the challenge and challenge of convincing them that I was their guy. And then I had to live up to that expectation. And that feeling for me, selfishly, is what motivated me from the first project to just keep going.

Greg Wamhoff:

So that first project led to a project down the road and then led to their friend across the city and then led to the next person. And before you know it, after about a year, my phone was ringing so much I had a monster dry erase board at my house and I ran out space writing down the leads. And I looked at my wife and I said, “What are we going to do about this?” And so, I kind of, through that process, when I started, really my goal was just to feed my family and have a little bit of freedom and just kind of work for myself. I didn’t start out with this idea of, “Oh, I want to grow this company.” It was just kind of some basic goals, right? I want to put food on the table and just see what I can do.

Greg Wamhoff:

So as that phone started ringing, I went back to a couple of guys, really, that I knew from my old company. The old company I worked for was… They probably had a hundred employees, half those being project managers, superintendents and such. And an early mentor of mine one time said to me that if you just hired great people, your business will take care of itself. And I truly believe that today still. It’s really about the people. So I went back to that company and I said, “Who’s the best project manager?” A guy I’d known a long time. He always had the best customer satisfaction scores, the best everything. And it actually took me over a year to convince him to leave that company and come work for a guy that was trying to figure out how to rub two pennies together at the time.

Greg Wamhoff:

But, as that unfolded, that guy, Jake, he’s actually still with us today, and we’ve had a lot of success together. And really the story of our referral growth is it’s not just my story, it’s about Jake and how he’s connected with the clients. It’s about Theresa, who runs our office and does a lot of other things for us. And over time, as we kind of started putting a few people together to build the company, it centered around that same feeling I had the first time, which is I love our customers. I care about our customers and we want to do a great job for them. And I think that was evident through some of the first relationships and employees we had, just shared that common thread. And that’s what really motivated us and drove us into this business.

Greg Wamhoff:

I think, as you look back over time, we didn’t really set out to be the biggest home builder in Texas or build the biggest custom homes. For us, it was always about the client. And so, that’s why we still do modest remodels all the way up to $7-10 million homes now and everything in between. And for us, it’s still the same old way of taking care of clients. And they refer us to their friends. And to me, it’s all work. I don’t care if you’re doing a kitchen or a $7 million home, it’s the same thing. Take care of the client, do a great job and ultimately they’re going to tell somebody else about you.

Zach Wojtowicz:

That’s a great point. And Charley, on our visit down there, Greg has a amazing customer experience in his sales process, which I think creates that. And it runs all the way through the project, but you showed me you were using VR to visualize their projects and kind of what it’s going to look like and walk them through it. And it stuck with me because it’s like that level of detail and care shows what you’re talking about, about caring about the customer, getting them feel. Of course they’re going to go tell their friends about it. And it’s not just a standard process. You’ve put a ton of meticulous details throughout and I’m sure throughout the building process, to make them want to say, “I have a contractor that you’re going to want to work with.”

Greg Wamhoff:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, on the outside as a company, we talk about two objectives. One is we always want to build a quality product. And kind of the thought behind that is, it’s hard to argue against good quality. When you deliver something that is right and true to what it should be in the industry, people don’t pick fights with you. There’s no reason to, right? When you’ve done what you said you’re going to do and the work is of high quality, there’s not much to talk about.

Greg Wamhoff:

The other objective though is you got to give a good client experience. There’s so many bad experiences out there in our industry and you hear about them all the time, of all these terrible situations that happen. But the truth is, there’s a lot of great companies out there too, that routinely deliver a customer experience that’s worthy of a referral. And those are the things we really try to focus on is, “Hey, we’re going to do a great job for you and deliver a product that you’re paying for and you’re going to enjoy it. We’re going to have on along the way. I’m going to be here, a phone call away, five years, 10 years from now.”

Greg Wamhoff:

And that still happens today. I mean, I just got a text earlier this week from a client we built a product for seven years ago, and he texted me at nine and I text him right back. “Hey yeah, sure, we can help with that. No problem. Let me put you in contact with this trade or whatever the case is.” And that’s just kind of the DNA of who we are, so.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah. I mean, hearing you talk about it, I can see why you have such a large population of your leads coming in from referrals. That’s something that we talk about all the time. I feel like, yeah, super common theme across the guests we have on here is Step 1, care about your customers. And just kind of the last step. And if you’re doing what’s best for them, then in turn, that’s going to turn into what’s best for your own company. As a numbers guy, a data guy, just because I’m trying to wrap my head around this, what percentage of the jobs you do, would you say came from a referral? Is it pretty much all of them or do you guys have some kind of cold, organic leads coming in too?

Greg Wamhoff:

Yeah, very rare it’s an organic lead. I would say until a year or two ago, we didn’t put any effort on social marketing or social media. Really and to that point, we have never done paid marketing.

Charley Burtwistle:

Wow.

Greg Wamhoff:

We just, we never did it. And I think if you’re doing business right, especially in a growing market like Texas, you shouldn’t have to. Right? But I would say our referral hovers right around 90% plus or minus. Really rare we get a project that comes from another source like social media or some other avenue where somebody sees us. I joked forever in our company, we didn’t even put signs out when we were doing projects. If somebody wants me, they’re going to go knock on that guys going and say, “Hey, you’re doing a project, who’s doing it?” Right? So, brand awareness is, I guess, for some companies it’s important. Ours is more relational capital. Relationships are what’s important for us.

Zach Wojtowicz:

That’s actually super interesting. We’ve had a guest on recently out of Minnesota, Jkath, and she, Katie, talked a lot about the need of a brand and how important that is. And I think you guys are saying the same thing. It’s the strategy though, and how you execute and generate those things. And the quality obviously speaks for itself. And it’s funny you don’t put out signs. I kind of feel like I couldn’t find your property. There wasn’t a sign of where to turn. So you’re so modest, you just… Yeah, you’re…

Greg Wamhoff:

Some of it was modest. I mean, we put signs out of projects now. We’ve started to kind of build a little bit more of a brand, but even still, even as we’ve kind of done that, our best projects and our phone still rings from the good old-fashioned referral, so.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah. I love it. Do you think, with your construction network down in Texas, I’m sure you have a lot of friends, you’ve had mentors. Is that how they did their business too, is the referral system? Do you have any other builders that you know that are heavy on social media and their perspective?

Greg Wamhoff:

Yeah. I don’t know. I would say I don’t have a lot of builder buddies.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Interesting.

Greg Wamhoff:

My friends are my employees, which… But everybody does a different way. Some guys, I mean, it depends on their strategy. Some guys want to build the most houses. Some guys want to build the biggest houses. Some guys, they put specs on the ground, right? That’s something that we never did. They try to generate brand awareness by getting into a big time neighborhood and throwing up some houses. We just have never taken that route. And I think to each builder or each business, they have their own strategy of how to go where they want to go. And for us, we talk about our referral network as our referral tree, right? And at first it was just this little lonely twig, but over time it’s grown to be a pretty healthy tree and it bears a lot of fruit for us. And the branches are like the different markets, our different referral networks, right?

Greg Wamhoff:

We’d do a project in this part of town and all of a sudden they refer us and it exponentially grows to where the branch on that tree is substantial. And sometimes we got to prune the branches back a little bit too. We’ve got to make sure that the stuff we’re getting fits within our strategy too. But I mean, for the most part, our strategy is, “Once you’re a client, you’re always our client.” And if somebody refers us, we’re there. I’m going to go check it out and see if it’s something we can do successfully for them.

Zach Wojtowicz:

And I imagine that that process of the referral and the relationship you build with that client leads to a lot of repeat work for those clients too.

Greg Wamhoff:

It does. I mean, to our clients’ faces, we call them legacy clients. Clients have done four or five-

Zach Wojtowicz:

That sounds like Buildertrend.

Greg Wamhoff:

Yeah. Behind the scenes, we call them, “Repeat offenders.” But yeah, I mean, we’ve had some clients I can think of right now where we’ve done five, six projects for. And really some of our growth over Texas has been driven by that exact idea. We built somebody a house here and now they have a lake house up on Lake Travis in Austin, or they want a beach house or their parents are moving into a town an hour away and they kind of look with us and say, “Hey, you’re our guy. We love you. We trust you. Will you please go?” And it’s not ideal to be running our guys trucks all over town, but to us still, that’s secondary issue. The primary is we’re going to take care of our people, our customers and their network. And if that means hopping in the truck for an extra hour to go hit a job site, so be it.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah. And I think, I mean, that’s kind of cool. The first thing you said on this interview, when talk about founding this and why you did is you wanted to make people happy and you wanted people to trust you enough to literally put a roof over their head. So it’s cool that your initial reason for doing this is stuck with you up to this point today and is still informing the decisions that you make on, “Is this going to provide the most value and the most intrinsic amount of happiness to our customers?” And apparently it’s working super well for you. So yeah, that’s just awesome that you kind of stuck with that same kind of vision.

Zach Wojtowicz:

How many projects a year are you taking on now, Greg?

Greg Wamhoff:

It kind of varies because the size of the project varies greatly for us, that number kind of moves all over. At any given point, we probably have 15 to 20 projects under construction. So I think we’re probably targeting somewhere 40 to 50 projects a year. And those are ranged from renovation to new home construction to even some light commercial work. I mean, we’re expanding a golf club right now, a restaurant, we’ve built offices. We do some other things.

Greg Wamhoff:

And a lot of times that’s same thing, it’s organic. It’s from a customer we did a different project for and they want us to go ahead and do their commercial stuff. So we’re not strictly residential, but it’s really, it’s something I would say too on the business. Sometimes people ask me, “How big do you want it to be? How many projects do you want to do?” This and that and sometimes I joke I’m a bad entrepreneur because I don’t really care. It’ll get as big as it should for us doing a good job and keep getting referrals. I don’t have some magical goal of, “I want to do a hundred houses.” I don’t care. You know?

Zach Wojtowicz:

It’s the journey. It’s about living and doing it, not just chasing stats and revenue and metrics.

Greg Wamhoff:

That’s right. Yeah.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I love that. I love that a lot.

Charley Burtwistle:

So do you use, as you talk about kind of this overflowing pipeline of leads that you have, are you guys using Buildertrend and the CRM in there to manage all that stuff? Or what other tech has helped you guys out?

Greg Wamhoff:

Yeah. To some extent, yeah. We’ve been putting the CRM tool in there. I think some of Buildertrend is great. I joked early on that Buildertrend could replace the cost of an employee if you could use it efficiently. That’s something we talk about routinely in our meetings. In fact, our director of construction had a meeting in here yesterday and one of his slides was going through some of the different tools of Buildertrend and saying, “Hey, grade ourselves. Are we an A or a C or an F or a D?” For us as a company, we’ve really embraced Buildertrend to say, “Hey, if we can learn to use this platform on its entirety and use it efficiently, we’re going to be able to compete at a high level in the market because we’re so integrated in the information in our process, and we’re going to make sure nothing falls through the cracks.” I think Buildertrend helps with that.

Greg Wamhoff:

With the lead and proposals CRM tools specifically, it’s an area for improvement for us, for sure. We track the stuff in there, but it’s got a lot of bells and whistles that we haven’t quite adopted yet. And some of the reason for that is we’re running around here going crazy with all the stuff we’ve got to do anyway, so. But I don’t know if that answers your question, but.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah, it sounds like you just didn’t have a very good onsite consultant come out. Maybe someone with a little more experience getting up and going.

Greg Wamhoff:

Really, yeah.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Oh, just take the knife out, real quick on the camera.

Greg Wamhoff:

I was going to mention that. No, no. With regards to that, I think when Zach came down, we were really infants relative to Buildertrend and helped kind of get us a foundation started in areas of Buildertrend that were going to be most utilized for our company at that time. So, it’d be interesting. I never look at the stats on Buildertrend, but I think we’re probably consistently increasing our activity on Buildertrend and how we’re using Buildertrend. You guys probably have a fancy graph for that, that shows that we are utilizing the program more and more.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah. I mean, at the time you guys were pretty good users, but it was of some niche areas that it was about a refinement piece. And I distinctly remember that is your core message was like, “We want to master this tool because we know what it can do.” And I think your story is very similar, where from a Buildertrend standpoint, it took a little time for your team to buy in. It took a little bit of a process for your habits to change. And I don’t know if that journey ever ends.

Greg Wamhoff:

I don’t think it ever does. As we first got into Buildertrend, I think the hardest thing was, is we had a system that was really successful in our mind. I had kind of built it. It was a combination of Excel sheets and SharePoint and it was pretty intuitive. But ultimately the decision to go to Buildertrend was that I just didn’t think our method at that time was scalable. Right? We were growing to more and more people. When the company was five or six, I had such a good pulse on everything. I could tell you every budget of every project of every client. But as we’ve grown, I just don’t have that ability anymore and so we needed a way to integrate that information and put it so that it was accessible to our team. And then also, the integration of the client piece of it, the client portal, for them to be able to have some connections to us where it’s not always a phone call. They have another tool to their disposal to be comfortable with their project or go find information or communicate with us, so.

Greg Wamhoff:

But it is, I think it’s a never ending implementation and innovation. I mean, you guys continue to innovate how your tools are working and as the market changes, that’s something that we try to embrace as a company is, “All right. What’s the next thing we can get better at? What’s the next innovation and the market that we can challenge?” And I think Zach mentioned kind of our virtual reality experience that we provide. We feel like that’s kind of really leading, especially with a company our size, there’s not a ton of companies I know that do that. But it’s out there. And, but even now, I’m talking to our team going, “Okay, that’s great, but what’s next? What’s the next innovation of that experience that’s going to have our customers even more confident that what they’re doing in their project is going to be successful?”

Zach Wojtowicz:

I’m curious, tying it back to the referral strategy and business, when you are getting those referrals coming in, do people mention, “I heard you use a software. I heard you do these things, you use Buildertrend.” They may not know the name, but is that their expectation as well?

Greg Wamhoff:

In some cases, yeah. Everybody’s got a different reason they got referred to us, right? Some people love their project manager, whether it’s Jake or Scott or David or Dylan or Eric, or I don’t want to leave somebody out here, right, but…

Zach Wojtowicz:

That’s all right, we do that all the time. We’ll shout people out and someone will say, “Hey, you didn’t say me.” We’re like, “Oh, sorry.”

Greg Wamhoff:

Yeah. So the last one there is Seth, right?

Zach Wojtowicz:

Seth. Seth.

Greg Wamhoff:

So Seth is awesome, right? But all our guys are doing a great job, and they’re the fabric of our referral. That’s where the rubber hits the road. But the rest of the team plays a huge role in that, in our connectivity to them. But yeah, everybody’s got a story when they get referred to us. “We heard, Hey, your VR experience is amazing.” “Hey, we heard your project manager did such a great job.” And in some cases, some of the feedback, and it comes through the avenue of Buildertrend is, “Hey, you guys are really professional. You’re very organized.” I’ve heard that as a reason for referral a few times and Buildertrend just adds to that cause, right? Of us being a professional firm that has our ducks in a row and that just adds to the chance of success of their project.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah. And I know Buildertrend has already done, this is kind of the second thing you’ve done with us. We have a case study that you helped us out with, that we have out on our blog. I’m sure it’ll be linked in the show notes. And now you’re on the podcast here too. So hopefully you get a couple of referrals from, “Hey, I heard you talking to Zach and Charley on โ€˜The Building Code.โ€™” And you can just email us our commission check and we’ll be good to go.

Greg Wamhoff:

That’s cool. I like it. Will do. I just thought, I almost stopped at Nebraska, right?

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah. I don’t know if you ever make your way up here to build, but… You said you’d go anywhere, I mean.

Greg Wamhoff:

Oh man. Yep. No, we’ll do it.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I don’t know if the building regulations are as favorable in the old corn husking state, but I’ll do some research, send you some proposals.

Greg Wamhoff:

All right. I like it. I like it.

Charley Burtwistle:

Well, Greg, we’re coming up on time here. Thank you so much. This was a fantastic interview. Really, really enjoyed talking to you and making fun of Zach with you, so that was sweet. Any kind of parting tips for builders or remodelers or anybody really trying to look to have customer satisfaction turn into more referrals?

Greg Wamhoff:

I would just encourage people to find their why. What motivates them? What’s important to them? And you can build a company or around that. And for us, the story has been our clients. And I think that that has been successful for us to drive referrals. So I don’t know if that’s helpful, but that was always our direction. I don’t know how to do it the other way. I don’t know how to do it with billboards. I don’t know how to do it with fancy specs, but I do know how to do it by picking up the phone and checking in on people and trying to provide them that experience that what makes them excited about working with our company.

Charley Burtwistle:

Love that.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Could not have said a better answer, Greg.

Greg Wamhoff:

Right. Awesome.

Charley Burtwistle:

Thanks for coming on โ€œThe Building Code.โ€ It was great to see you again. Hopefully this isn’t the last time that we have a chance to tee off on Zach. You’re always welcome back and we’ll catch you next time. Thanks Greg.

Greg Wamhoff:

All right, guys. Have a great day.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Charley, we just had Greg.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah. Fantastic interview.

Zach Wojtowicz:

They’re always fantastic.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah, absolutely. This one, I mean, I feel like I say this every week, but there’s so many commonalities across the different types of builders that we’ve talked about. I mean, you made reference to the Jkath interview we had, where we’re talking about building out your brand. And I think what he said in kind of his closing remarks there was really cool. It’s just find your why, figure out what you want your brand to be. There’s a ton of different ways to word it. But at the end, it’s just figure out what drives you and what you want your business to be and how you’re going to be the best of that. And for him, he talked about it. He just wanted to make people happy and build houses and that’s his brand, that’s his why. And that’s what’s made him as successful as he is today.

Charley Burtwistle:

I also thought it was cool because he could have kind of taken the high road and said, “This is how everyone should do it.” I like the fact that he acknowledged that there’s different business models out there and different people have different whys. And so that, I thought that was a really cool part too. But how was getting reunited with Greg? Was everything you wanted and more?

Zach Wojtowicz:

Absolutely. Yeah. It was fantastic to hear from Greg and his wife, Adrienne and the whole team. I’ve worked with Theresa quite a bit actually when I was doing the onsite, and Jake. So it’s good to hear that they’re all doing well.

Charley Burtwistle:

Oh, you got to shout them all out now. That’s what we said in the interview.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I know. Well, Seth, and all the names that we talked about that, and here I am forgetting to name people. Sorry, Greg. But that’s what’s the best part of working with customers is building those relationships. And it’s in my past life, I had students when I was a teacher that you think about and you hope that they’re doing well and then you meet them down the line and they’re doing amazing things. And you’re like, “Wow, you guys are making it, you’re doing it.” So I kind of have this weird sense of joy. Not that Greg or Wamhoff needs my moral support, but it’s awesome to see they continue to kill it. And so many stories like that in the Buildertrend family of people who sign up. We hear it at Buildertrend University. We saw it at IBS. It’s really special.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It was a great episode. A quick reminder to our listeners, next week is returning with episode two of the minisodes. So we’re going to have someone from our product team back on here, talk about what’s in the works at Buildertrend. Talk about what’s happening and give a little sneak peek into what’s to come. So make sure you check that out. Make sure to like, comment and subscribe everywhere you’re listening to. Check out the YouTube, leave a comment. Zach and I are both wearing glasses today. So this is one you’re going to want to tune to.

Zach Wojtowicz:

We’re really starting to sync on our vibe for our outfits. That’s how you know. No more data science, no more strategy. It’s the pod.

Charley Burtwistle:

There you go. We’ll focus full time. Well, thank you so much. Another episode of โ€œThe Building Code.โ€ I’m Charley Burtwistle.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Zach Wojtowicz.

Charley Burtwistle:

See you.

Greg Wamhoff | Wamhoff Design | Build


Places You Can find us

Listen on Apple Podcasts
Available on Podbean
Listen on spotify

Get updates for The Building Code

Be the first to know when new episodes are released.

We think you’d also like this

Money flying by over a chart of arrows for a blog focused on helping builders grow their construction companies.

blog | 8 min read

Sep 26, 2022

4 strategies to grow your construction company

Learn four strategies on how to grow a construction business and scale your company to eight figures.

Read the blog
Open laptop on a desk next to a mug of coffee.

blog | 9 min read

Jan 10, 2022

5 tips for optimizing your online construction marketing

Your businessโ€™s online presence is more important than ever. Check out these five tips for optimizing your construction marketing.

Read the blog
Home builder meets with two clients

blog | 12 min read

May 2, 2023

8 tips to ensure a superior client experience

Looking to make a lasting impression with your construction customer service? Hereโ€™s what to keep in mind when creating high-quality client services.

Read the blog