For Jacob Thompson, creating a name for his company centered around one term: solutions. To him, remodeling is all about finding solutions to budget issues, design challenges, and more. And for the rest of the name, he turned to his favorite sport.
“Home Run was my way of incorporating my passion for baseball into the business title,” Thompson says. “The home run is the most exciting, impactful aspect of the game, and with that I felt I had captured the purpose of my business.”
Home Run Solutions seeks not only to keep clients happy but also to do the same for its employees. That’s why the company allows its employees to self-schedule their work. For instance, the company assigns carpenters to jobs relatively near their homes so that employees require less commuting time—an important consideration in the company's service area 20 miles north of traffic-plagued Seattle.
Also, while the company works together to determine a completion date, Thompson leaves it up to his employees as to how they complete the work. Some carpenters start earlier in the day than others because of family obligations.
In addition, Thompson says staff don’t need approval to leave early for a doctor’s appointment or for a family obligation: As long as the client knows the schedule and the work gets done, Thompson prefers to give his team freedom.
Home Run is constantly looking to improve its practices. Thompson tells of a time when a fridge stuck out further beyond the countertop than a customer had imagined. Now, the team includes this potential problem as part of its design checklist. All clients must sign off that someone has explained to them—and that they understand—how far their fridge will stick out.
