I once worked for a small builder who wanted to become a true custom builder. I ran his company for a few years, and used this principle of direct access to build the business up for him. There was, of course, a price to be paid personally: lots of off-hour phone calls, lots of weekend and evening meetings in people’s homes, lots of personal effort spent going “beyond the call of duty.” But guess what — it worked.
Sales went up over time, pretty much doubling every year. We were always a more expensive builder than the tract builder competition, but our clientele gravitated to us because of the personal touches that showed we cared.
But one day the company’s directors decided the systems were good enough, the market share was strong enough, and they were ready to be aggressive. Sadly, the company became neither a tract builder nor a custom builder, but rather just an over-priced and under-performing tract-behaving builder.
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