Young & Brave

Brian and I had just entered our thirties when we first started Davies Home Improvements. We had one child and a small two-bedroom house (see next blog for more). As it turned out,

That’s all we needed before we:

  Leaped!

  Took the plunge!

  Jumped off the cliff!

  (Pick the metaphor of your choice; the meaning doesn’t change.)

We did the thing and risked it all!

-AND-

Started our journey into the world of entrepreneurship.

We took anything we could, starting with decks and fences, which quickly led to basements. Brian had done many basements among a long list of home projects for hundreds of customers.

The problem is that that experience was either under the name of other companies or dispersed across Canada and the globe (New Zealand).

We knew we could do the work. The issue was never qualification. But we had to find those willing to trust us as we built our company.

-AND

Every business model everywhere insisted we had to define “us” & “our customers, clients”.

No Niche (Sounds Like Quiche)

When you start a company or hear about the beginning stages of building one, there is a lot of focus on niches. ’ What ‘customers’ are you ‘targeting’, and so on?

What ‘niche’ are you filling in the marketplace?

It was more than a little tricky to navigate when Brian’s qualifications easily meant our answers for most of the above were “building” and “anyone.”

Inevitably, we gave way to advice and decided to focus on exterior and interior renovations. It was a mouthful of words, but it laid the groundwork of the beginnings. Next, we had to hone in on our potential clients.

“That’s a Mouthful!”

Build a network from your network?

No thanks.

—Brian Davies

In layman’s terms, the advice is to use your local community networks, social media, etc., because they are the most likely to trust you already.

We decided on (drum roll)…. Hamilton, Niagara Surrounding Area. A lot of words that mean .. local!

However, contrary to the above advice, we aimed to extend our community rather than limit ourselves. Why work exclusively with those we already knew?c9b

A business is an interesting thing in itself. Some want to distance themselves from it, but we wanted to personalize it. We felt it was important to tie our name to it as we stand behind our work.

We played with Davies Homes for a while, but it became ‘the dream. ’ Improvements appealed to us as a compromise between our vision and the early stages.

Which catches us up to building decks and, finally, basements!

 

Would you believe us if we told 

you the next project after the basement was a full home renovation and an addition?

In year one, we were busting out the seams of our business strategy and quickly making our way beyond, above, and around Niagara and Hamilton.

But then, life happens while you’re busy planning your company’s vision.  And somehow, your one-child two-bedroom house is now three bedrooms with three children, two cats, and a dog. So, you deal with that for a while.

AND then it’s been ten years?!

-AND-

We’ve spent most of it building homes and home additions (usually combined with whole-home renovations). And when you (it’s me) finally look at your website and that old business model, it doesn’t fit anymore!

As I wrote at length in Home Additions, it’s easy to outgrow ideas or space with time.

The funniest part is that we’ve continued to bring homeowners’ dreams into reality, and we’ve stumbled our way into our own dream.

So it’s time to define the framework that‘s gotten us here.

Because -it’s not just a ‘company’. And- the word ‘customer’ never felt right. Words matter. Language is important.

We view our skills as an opportunity to get to know homeowners and their families.

We’re family-run by an experienced home builder (and his wife). We believe every homeowner and their families deserve everything they want!

They shouldn’t have to ‘sacrifice’ quality, aesthetics, or anything. And yes, these are just words on a page.

Thankfully, Brian is a natural person who relates to any homeowner.

So, we value each opportunity to build your homes or provide services. We continue through the challenges – we’ve learned we were built for tough roads. Frankly put, we loved the journey!

So, long story short?

It’s time for our business model, website, and logo to reflect what we do! Our vision is now our reality, and it’s time to update our philosophy to reflect that!