Before turning 18, Pat Strand had already launched a business flipping houses—one that ultimately turned some 75 of them. The young entrepreneur today operates Total Home, a Kansas company that divides its business about 50/50 between remodeling projects and installing Marvin windows.
Total Home operates a 1,400-square-foot showroom and, within the past year, added design services to its palette. Besides executing great projects and window installations, Strand’s goal, he says, is to make the experience “fun” for clients.
Strand makes it a point to let clients know that the company’s keeping them in mind. “Sometimes it’s a phone call, sometimes it’s a quick email saying thanks,” he says. The company sometimes sends clients a birthday gift. Recently, Strand sent a bottle of good wine to a client the company built a wine cellar for.
Takeaways
- Total Home operates a stock truck packed everything the company needs to keep jobs on schedule.
- Strand is active in NARI, where he serves as the vice president of the Kansas City chapter, as well as a member of Remodelers Advantage.
- The company addresses worksite issues immediately rather than allowing them to be come a source of client dissatisfaction. “We manage it from the front,” Strand says, “and avoid those problems on the back side.” For example, the company took delivery of a faulty door. That was explained to the client “and we said we have another door coming over right away.”
- Total Home's staff ensures that everything is planned from the beginning—selections made, subs lined up—so that it’s “all about making that schedule.” Then jobs are tracked on a Google calendar. “The biggest complaint we hear [about other contractors] is that they said it would be six weeks and it turned out to be three months,” Strand says. Clients are “in agony” when jobs run over or “if you’re not there for a day or two.” Which is why tracking the job on an online calendar is combined with daily communication by phone, text, or email.
