F E AT U R E Engaging with your Customers— Both Internal and External by Mike Brewer, Senior Advisor to Synergos
When originally given the opportunity to write about 'Engaging our Customer' the natural place for me to go was how we meet with and speak to our Builder customers. It's what a typical article would have been focused on, but these aren’t typical times. Things have changed over this past year. I'm Mike Brewer, the Founder and CEO of the Brewer Companies, and although I still am in the role of CEO, I no longer am the owner. This change in situation has me writing from a different perspective than I would have a year ago. As my byline says above, I am now part of a much larger organization and on a new team – Synergos. Synergos holding company was formed to acquire construction groups to solve significant issues that plague
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residential homebuilders today. To date, Synergos has purchased Framing, Electrical, Concrete, and HVAC companies, and now added a Plumbing company. The significant issues alluded to are the inherent breakdowns that currently exist in how building homes has historically taken place. This points to the title of this article or Engaging with your Customers. The success of this group of companies coming together depends on how we engage and communicate internally during the building cycle, streamlining the process and systems between every layer of the entire organization. Fundamentally homebuilding is the same as it was 50-100 years ago. Yes
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the tools have gotten better – most being battery operated – and the materials have changed substantially, but the fundamental way a home is built depends on the coordinated actions of many disparate parties, all contracted to perform in a seamless manner. All this being driven by a builder superintendent, trying to herd cats updating schedules and juggling phone calls and emails daily. There are over 250 alerts, notifications, phase schedules and inspections in the building of an average tract home. Multiply that by the builder superintendent having between 20 and 50 houses or more at different stages of the build cycle and it becomes apparent that it’s impossible for them to be successful every day. This leads to "dry
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