Homeowners, especially those going through their first remodel, rarely realize what the entire process entails. They often have misconceptions about price or how much time the project will take. “I've met with so many people who think they can just find a builder and start building within a week,” says Chris Withers, co-owner of Old Greenwich Builders in Denver. So a big part of a remodeler's job becomes educating prospective clients.

“When you're repeating the same information on every sales call, it makes sense to put it down on paper,” Withers says. He and business partner Cress Carter put their heads together to simplify the remodeling process as much as they could, and Carter then laid out their ideas in Excel. Old Greenwich clients now have an attractive visual representation of how their project will develop, and Withers and Carter have a “script” to use for their sales presentations.