Understanding Two Worlds: Yours and Your Builders

I recall hearing a story recently about a builder who built a custom home for a professional race car driver.  The driver was ranked number one in the world the year he built the home.  Early in the homebuilding process, the builder couldn't understand why it was so unsettling for the customer if things didn't go quite as planned.  If a subcontractor or supplier showed up a day late or weather impacted the schedule, the customer became very upset.

After a couple of months, the race car driving customer gave the builder a ticket to a big race in the area that he was in.  It was a 24 hour endurance race.  The builder had a great day watching the race, the crowds and the people.  At around 8pm he headed home to bed.  The next morning, the builder woke up and turned on ESPN to learn that after 21 hours of racing, his customer was leading the race - by a mere 10 seconds! 

It dawned on him that in his customer's world, ten seconds was EVERYTHING.  The precision required to be a world-class race car driver was very different than the precision required to build a home.  To the driver, having a subcontractor show up late was hard to understand.  In this 24 hour race, the customer was part of 3 driver rotation.  If, during the driver exchange, one driver bumps his knee on the door and loses four or five seconds in the transition, it can cost him the race.

The expectations of the construction industry were just different than that of race car driving.  In my personal experience, the same can be said about the some of my customers that are physicians or engineers.  Certainly the standards and expectations in an operating room are very different than home building in Tampa.  Bottom line let your builder know about your world and try to understand his.

Jon Solomon

www.JAVICHOMES.com

http://www.facebook.com/javichomes