The remodeling industry is no stranger to awards. Every professional organization and every magazine, including this one, recognizes leadership, sensational design, and business savvy. Among the programs, however, two rise above the rest. The Fred Case Remodeling Entrepreneur Award stands out as the most prestigious, carrying with it a serious cash prize. It's also the most subtle; over a bedrock of service, business acumen, and achievement, it seeks to identify creativity and innovation—veritable "it factors" in business that cannot be attained by study or imitation. Right next to the Case Award sits the Impact Award, which while it might be the youngest awards program in the industry, sets the highest bar. To even be nominated requires a significant commitment to service and unflagging perseverance.
It begins at the Remodelers Advantage Roundtables—the peer program that brings together similar companies from noncompeting markets into groups. True to the name, a round table has no head and no foot, so all members sit equal to one another. But this is no mere discussion group. At each meeting, the host company must open its books, explain its company structure, and reveal its plans to the other members, who don't hold back from telling that business owner what they're doing wrong and right. There's no hiding poor performance in any corner of your company.
"It's so much more than business," explains Steve Barkhouse, winner of the 2018 Impact Award. "The very thing that could be hindering you the most in your business could be very personal and have nothing to do with business."
Just to participate in the Roundtables requires courage and an intense dedication to persevere. And we haven't even gotten to the nominations yet.
At the conclusion of each Roundtable meeting, the members vote for one exemplary participant to be named MVP of that meeting. This is when kindness, service, integrity, and business savvy shine through; if it wasn't real, it wouldn't be recognized by the peers to whom you have disclosed everything at one point or another. Becoming an MVP is a nomination for the Impact Award. The field of participants are judged on business performance, continuous improvement, generosity in helping fellow members succeed, and providing savvy advice to those fellow members. Ten semifinalists are selected, out of which four finalists emerge, and finally, a winner. This year, top honors went to Steve Barkhouse.
True Friends
"Building's in my blood," says Steve Barkhouse, owner of Amsted Design-Build, an $8 million, full-service renovation company in Ottawa, Ont. "Growing up, all of my family were in the construction trades in one way or another." He founded Amsted in 1989 after graduating university with degrees in architecture and business, expecting to take a management job with a large construction firm. Instead, he says, "I was lucky enough to graduate at the beginning of the recession when you couldn't get a job."
While "lucky" here is a bit tongue-in-cheek, there is a note of sincerity, too, as it's what forced Barkhouse to go into business for himself. Two years later, he persuaded his best friend, Kirk Haw, to abandon a successful career in retail to join him in the renovation business. Today, the partners run equal-sized businesses, Amsted and Promus Ottawa , an insurance restoration company. Initially a way to diversify and smooth over the bumps in the economy, insurance work grew into its own business. Each partner now leads a separate company, but they share ownership and continue to support each other in making business decisions.
"To have someone you look up to who is in the trenches with you is powerful," Barkhouse says of his business partner. "It's easy to admire an industry leader, someone up on a pedestal, but to see him go through the difficult challenges and know how he deals with those is very influential."
After 16 years in business, Barkhouse joined Remodelers Advantage with the sole purpose of learning design-build.
"We felt the added value of design-build would allow us to increase our margins. We were already making money, but I thought I could save myself a bit of grief learning design-build, and then I'd move on," Barkhouse says. "But we've been there 13 years because every time I go, I learn something tremendously valuable that moves my company forward."
"What I've learned over the years is so far beyond how to be a design-build company now," Barkhouse continues. "The first few meetings, it was like drinking from a fire hose, because what I thought I knew, I didn't know. That can be overwhelming. People will sometimes drop out after the first meeting or two, and that's such a huge mistake because it's right after that—it can be at different times for different people—when you click in and say, 'OK, maybe I'm not quite where I thought I was, but I see I can get there.' You realize it sure is a lot better to know what you didn't know that to just be ignorant."
Barkhouse was surprised by how intense the growth process afforded by Remodelers Advantage has become.
"The members of Remodelers Advantage are absolutely our friends, in the true sense," Barkhouse says. "A friend can say the hard things that need to be said, but they are always there for you... A friend can tell you the hard truth that you don't want to admit to yourself. And because of the trust, you listen in a different way, and that's often exactly what you need to surrender the practices that aren't working and change how you are doing things.
"When I joined, we were doing a lot right. I was paying myself an income, we were making money, but I wish we had joined Remodelers Advantage 10 years earlier. If we had, I would have arrived where I am today five or seven years ago, but it would have been much, much easier."
See also: A Word From the Impact Award Finalists
