Full Transcript
Hey Garage Door Fans, welcome back to The Garage. I’m Chris Wilke with C&W; Canada Garage Doors and I’m here today with John Granger of Fresh Carpentry and Contracting. How are you doing, John? Outstanding. Of course you are! Today, we’re gonna be talking a little bit about quality and what quality means for us in our businesses and I figured you’d be the perfect person to talk to about that. So John, before we get into all that tell the people at home a little bit about your business. So what we do is we are a general contractor that focuses on carpentry as a whole and we do small projects as far as bathrooms go, we do mid-level projects which are basement renovations, basement developments, and then we also do full home renos, interior and exterior. We also do decks, fences, pergolas, and any other project did you come up with. So anything on your property that involves any kind of construction, we’re your guys. Wow, it sounds like you’re really growing your business. And John, we both have a very similar view on quality, so not just in general but everyday work that we do. So can you give me an example of a really high-quality job that you’ve recently done? So a very high-quality job that we recently did is we finished a full home reno and we took a client’s very first home that she lived in for 20 years and we did a complete makeover, complete renovation - basement, kitchen bathrooms, custom mudroom built-ins, custom fireplace, all of that, flooring, railings. We touched every part of this house and at the end of the day to see her face in her very first new home. Outstanding. There’s nothing better. That’s awesome so I have a very similar story. There was an old kind of cottage looking house that the garage doors on them were just a little bit worn out, like it was a beautiful exterior and I didn’t want to do much to to taint that sort of look. So what I did was I took our regular Heritage 3000 garage door, I put a wood finish on it, and then I added some windows that not only were beautiful but matched the upper window of her home as well. And it just really tied everything together. Took these old ratty wood doors out and put in these high quality steel doors that looked just like wood but without the maintenance and the upkeep and all that stuff so those doors come with a lifetime warranty on the paint finish, so really high quality that way, and also a lifetime warranty on the workmanship. So that means that if the hinge breaks and a spring breaks and the cable breaks, we’re all good Then they’re all covered and that to me speaks to high quality. Excellent, so again, we have a lot of different clients that we both interact wit,h but can you tell me about a client that you had to, I don’t know, for lack of a better word rescue, from let’s say a contractor that that wasn’t up to our standards of quality? Absolutely. So I got a call from one of my one of my fellow trades and it was his business partner who had actually expanded the business to Montreal. So, he calls me up and he says, "hey, I got a client that we did some work for and they’re in a tough spot. They’ve got a contractor who we don’t know whether he’s gone bankrupt, whether he’s disappeared, whether he’s taking the money to run. They need some help." So, to give you some backstory on this what this was is this is a triple car garage with the garden suite above for their mother, right, that was to live up there. And this project had already been going on for a year and a half and the only thing that had been done was it had been framed and the exterior had been finished and been put in. Wow in a year and a half. A year and a half. Okay, so they call us up, we go in and the way we work projects like that of that caliber is I met with the clients, we found the scope of work, we got the drawings together. And then I met with them, I brought all of my trades in, you included and we went through we had a whole trade meeting. Those clients got to meet every single person that was going to be working on their homes. Super important. They know these guys they meet them they can interact with them. They can say, "hey, you know what, I really don’t like that guy. I don’t want that guy in my house." Understood. Respected. But they loved every single guy that I brought in there. Every guy was respectful. Ee got all the pricing together for them and once we agreed to the scope of work, we proceeded. And our whole goal was to get this lady in and have that project done before Christmas. All of the complications having to completely redo the HVAC and going through permit complications and everything, and we were able to get her in there living in that house just shortly after New Year’s. It was a holiday miracle. It was a holiday miracle. Perfect, yeah, that actually reminds me of a story that I recently had. There was a contractor again... the problem with my trade is that there is a lot of people that say they can do garage doors and really can’t. Now, I have... this is a family business for me so I have this knowledge passed down from my my father. So when he got the call and said, "hey, I had a contractor come in, he installed the door for me, but it’s never really run right and I just I don’t know what to do." And you know, I’m kind of scared to use my own door. Which is heartbreaking for a guy like me, right? Garage doors are my life. So I of course took the call, I went over there, and yeah everything was done kind of shoddy and I was able to... I basically had to take the whole door down and once I did that I was able to stack it back up. I put everything in properly and run everything super smooth. I installed the opener again as well because that had been installed poorly, and like when I was done with it, the thing went like a top. So I really appreciated him putting that trust in me to be able to do that after being scorned like that.. Trust is huge. Yes trust is huge for me so and when I was done with it, it was running perfectly smooth so that is huge for me. Again, like you were talking about trust and that was huge for me that he was able that he called. So, here’s the big question for you John. You’re super busy guy. How do yo guarantee quality. How do you take the first project and make sure the quality of that first project matches the quality of the hundredth project. Commitment and that is the only way to do it. Commitment, honesty, and communication. Each project has a certain amount of allotted time and with that allotted time comes room for error, room for delays, room for whatever that may be, and if project A that we start on is supposed to take two weeks and it takes two and a half weeks the client before, during, and after are all afforded the same courtesy that your project is going to take what it’s going to take. So the client after or next is going to get called, they’re going to say "hey, we’ve had some delays on this project. We’re going to take three more days to start, then that project can get finished out, it can get finished out properly." And when we leave, we know that we’re done. And then the next project after that, if they have the same sort of scenario or they want to add on to the scope of work, they’re afforded that time, right? We’re never there to say "hey, I have four days to do your project and then I’m leaving, it doesn’t matter how much work they get done." It’s "no, you paid for this amount of work and you pay for this quality, this is what we’re gonna do." That’s super important. And you know, it’s very similar with me. When I tell you something I make it my duty to make sure that’s what you’re gonna get. So, when I tell you that it’s gonna take four to six weeks for your order to get in, it’s gonna take four to six weeks to door to get in. Once you sign a contract with me, then the door that you purchased is the door that you get, and the install is going to last just as long as that lifetime warranty. Super important to me, so when at the end of the day, when I slap my sticker on that door I’m not just slapping my name on that door. That’s my family business, that’s my legacy. So that’s how we important the quality is to me. I did I think that wraps it up.Thank you very much for taking the time and hanging out with me in the garage a little bit there, talking about our trades. I always love you your company and stuff, so thank you very much. Where can people find you? They can find me online at www.freshcarpentry.ca. They can find me on Instagram @freshcarpentry on Facebook @freshcarpentrycontracting and if they want to reach out and give me a call, 780267-RENO That’s awesome. Well garage door fans, thank you very much for spending time with me today in The Garage. You know where to find me www.cwgarage.ca, Facebook and Instagram @ CWcanadagaragedoors Have a good day...