Back in 2000, when Jake Brown was pursuing a dental degree, his dad called him and told him the news: Due to health concerns, he was shutting his remodeling business. “That’s when I had a pretty big decision in life,” says Brown, who’s now the owner of Winston Brown Remodeling.
Although he had worked for the company since the age of 10, Brown never saw himself running it. But once he got a taste, he was hooked. Since formally purchasing the company in 2007, Brown has steadily rebuilt it.
“We are not the ‘Come get three estimates, shoot us a contract, and hope you sign it’ kind of company,” Brown says. Instead, the firm’s design/build process means Brown’s team takes the time to get to know customers before producing a 3D rendering based on that knowledge.
“We take their ideas and our ideas and meld them together,” he says. “So many companies just spend 30 minutes with them and then send a bid and do the design. This way, they fall in love with the project because they’re part of the process.”
Once a job begins, it’s all about communication, aided by digital software such as BuilderTrend and GoogleDrive. “We upload all their choices—tiles, colors, plans—so they have access to them at all times,” Brown says. “I’d say we over-communicate.”
But it’s not all done through tech. Over the course of the job, a marketing manager visits the home two or three times with wine or cookies to check in—about the family, not the job. “We’re literally talking with them without talking money or materials,” Browns says. “That’s helped us tremendously.”
That sort of personal approach permeates the rest of the business, too. One of the best examples is the company’s regular volunteer work, whether it’s packing food for kids, raising money for low-income families, donating old cabinets and counters to Habitat for Humanity, or building a new garage for a single mother with handicapped children.
“It’s the community that supports us,” Brown says. “And if you don’t give back, you’re just kind of a curmudgeon.”
