Revolutionizing Remodeling: Digital Marketing Insights with John Gioffre of Revent Builds

Welcome to the latest episode of the Remodeler Digital Playbook, where we dive deep into the world of digital marketing for home remodeling and construction. Today, we're thrilled to have John Gioffre, the founder of Revent Builds, as our special guest. John is renowned for his innovative approach to remodeling, particularly with his viral Modern Victorian home. His expertise in crafting multimillion-dollar homes is matched only by his skill in leveraging digital marketing to elevate his brand.

In this episode, we explore various facets of digital marketing in the remodeling industry. Discover the secrets behind John's success and get firsthand insights into his marketing strategies, use of social media, and much more.

Don't miss this opportunity to learn from one of the industry's leading figures. Tune in to gain invaluable insights that can transform your digital marketing strategy and elevate your remodeling business.

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Chapters

• 1:50 Who is John Gioffre?
• 5:03 What Types of Marketing Do You Do?
• 7:47 John’s Build Camp
• 19:18 What Budget Do You Use for Advertising?
• 22:56 How Do You Collect Reviews?
• 32:40 What Tools Do You Use?
• 36:23 Advice for Young Contractors

Transcript

Rathna Ramakrishnan
I'm excited today to be speaking to

John Gioffre
John. Hi, Rathna, thanks for having me on.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
Absolutely. Please go ahead and introduce yourself. Tell me a little bit about your business, how many years you've been in business. And if you're comfortable sharing your revenue numbers and employee counts, that would be wonderful as well.

John Gioffre
Sure. My name is John Gioffre. I'm the owner of Revent Builds. We are a very high end remodeler custom home builder in Austin, Texas. Our annual gross revenue is about 7.5 to 8 millionish. We have myself, my wife, hold on, admin, project manager, superintendent. We have five employees. Excellent. The rest of all of our staff is going to be subcontractors.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
And how many years have you been in business?

John Gioffre
I started in construction in and around 2012. I started this company Revent Builds early 2017.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
Nice. And what got you into the construction business?

John Gioffre
Well, you know what's funny is no one in my family is in construction. I didn't go to school for this or anything. I actually started a real estate investment company in Houston where we were buying rehab homes like buy and holds, putting very little into them. They were kind of like distressed properties. But I just started falling in love with the process.

John Gioffre
It was like I was kind of playing general contractor. Then we did about ten houses and I was like, “Hey, I kind of know what I'm doing.” So then I started working for clients, did a couple flips, did my first upscale remodel for myself. And when I did that, that was just like I had a massive breakthrough. I was like, This is what I want to do with my life.

John Gioffre
I get to be creative. I get to interact with so many people. My day is ever changing and the problem solving, right? So I actually played college football. So after I was done and left this big hole in me of like this intensity and competitive nature, right? So I found a lot of that through building in the problem solving and just how many trials and tribulations that you face.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
That's so cool. Indeed, with general contracting, there are so many surprises that you have to be ready for, right?

John Gioffre
Oh my gosh. I call it crisis management.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
Absolutely. So who is your ideal customer?

John Gioffre
So our ideal customer is, you know, usually they can really be any age, but usually I find they're probably 35 plus probably a sweet spot around like 45, 50 years old. They've gone through a few properties, you know, maybe they've done some rehabs, they've done, you know, a couple of renovations, so they're a little more seasoned to the process.

John Gioffre
And now they've bought their dream property and they want us to entirely gut it, remodel it, add on to it, make it their dream home.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
So you do you build a lot of custom homes?

John Gioffre
Yeah, we do. We do a lot of custom homes. We do a lot of speculative homes, too, which means, you know, we'll buy the lot. Either tear down the house and build new or renovated and sell it. So we do a lot of that as well.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
And what types of marketing are you doing right now? What's in your marketing toolbox?

John Gioffre
So I'm very heavy into SEO because I don't want to, you know, use a lead gen service where I'm paying them all this money and making them grow. I want to grow. So that means we're always updating our website. I think it's just like a really great way to build your own company up. So I do SEO. I do a lot of Google Ads, Facebook Ads.

John Gioffre
I have an in-house videographer. Sorry, I didn't mention that. He's one of my sixth employee, so he does all of our content creation. Full videography, full editing. So we're on YouTube, Instagram, you know, all of that stuff, and we're meeting tons of different people there. We meet a bunch of subcontractors through social media, clients, even, you know, other TV production agencies that want to potentially do a show on what we're doing.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
Excellent. So which of these efforts do you think is driving your highest quality leads? Are they coming from your website, from Google Ads?

John Gioffre
You know, honestly, like the very highest quality leads, I think a lot of that is getting in this tight circle of like, let's say, a neighborhood and you build a really standout home that a lot of people are seeing, that there's a lot of grass roots. Right. But what I think is really interesting is in conjunction with that.

John Gioffre
So like just being in the community, like, you know, have like that's where social media helps just get your name out there. Then they see the house going like, “Oh my gosh, I saw you on Instagram.” And then, you know, I searched, you know, like ‘Austin, Texas Custom Homebuilder’ and you were there. So it's like they're seeing us in like three or four spots. Right, omnipresence.

John Gioffre
Yeah. So I I'm really a big believer that I don't think people even call you until they see you the third, fourth, or fifth time. So I'm trying to show up everywhere. And that's kind of a common theme.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
Excellent. So your videographer then takes before and after photos or completed projects like do you have a process for the videography?

John Gioffre
Yeah. So we'll actually do we will actually document the whole entire build like a short docu series. So people are following along the whole time and what's so funny is someone's like, “Hey, I saw this house on your website. This is the style that we want to build or I've never seen anyone do that and I fell in love with that.

John Gioffre
Can you do the same for me?” But another thing that I've just come up with that's been exceptional is I call it build camp. So every big speculative project we do, we do a build camp along with it. So I'll sign up, you know, anywhere from 50 to 100 people, they pay $1,000 fee. And then I teach them all about the home building process.

John Gioffre
I have onsite meetings with them. They follow along the build the whole time. And it's so surprising how many people, you know, they're seeing you in this like education, kind of like professor role. And they think more highly of you and then they want to hire you to do work for them.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
So these are homeowners that are following along?

John Gioffre
Yes.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
Potential clients for you.

John Gioffre
Yeah. And, you know, a lot of the times the people will you know, they'll call me a year after following me and they'll say, I've been following you along for so, you know, for a year and I've seen everything you do. And, you know, I'm very. I’m also very open and honest. So it's not like we're only portraying the perfect stuff.

John Gioffre
I show how we overcome obstacles, how certain logistics errors, and just like we said earlier, like there's there's no denying that this isn't a perfect process. But what I tell people is you get a perfect result. And I think when they watch me and they see that unfold, they fully believe it. So it's really, really interesting. There are a lot of like other builders, you know, remodelers people in the build trade, but tons of homeowners that are watching this and and wanting to, you know, do things similar to what they're seeing on my channel.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
So they are watching this on YouTube. They're not at the actual project site.

John Gioffre
No. So but the build camp is at the project site. Got it. That I was talking about. That's like, a course, just specifically for that particular home. But that's a much more in-depth. But yeah, then, you know, the vast majority of people are seeing this online, on YouTube, or Instagram, things like that.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
That's such a cool idea. How long have you been doing this build camp?

John Gioffre
You know what? I just started it and I don't know how like I actually came up with it because so many people were following along and asking me questions. And, you know, I always try to encourage people to kind of take this leap if you want to get into building. I teach people kind of how to do it.

John Gioffre
And then I was basically like, you know, would anyone be interested in this type of course? And I got hundreds of replies like so many people wanting to not even to become a builder, but like, “Hey, I want to be more informed as a homeowner,” right? “I'm an architect and I want to know the build process better. I'm an interior designer.

John Gioffre
I'm a remodeler earlier in my career and I want to do multimillion dollar jobs,” things like that. So yeah, it's been really fascinating.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
That's amazing because it's a huge investment and your home is such a precious space. So I can relate to how potential you know, clients of yours that are interested in going through this build camp learn more about the process. I would love to do it myself if I had an opportunity because, yeah, it sounds so exciting.

John Gioffre
Oh, thank you so much. And yeah, like just to like go in further, it's such a vulnerable like experience. You are trusting your builder so much. You're paying them all of this money. They're inside your home, you have personal belongings, just even locking the door. Stuff like that. So it's like the more that I can meet people and they can get a personal impression of me, the better that I feel, and the more like trusting and ready they are to take that next step.

John Gioffre
And that's why I also wanted to do the build camp, because the more informed that people are, the more the’ll realize why our process is so much better and why we cost what we do and, you know, things of that nature, because then they're like, “Oh, well this cheaper guy does things this way. This is how Revent Builds

Rathna Ramakrishnan
does it.” Right. They have clarity as to why you're different and why you're special. Excellent. What would you say is your unique selling proposition? Why do you think people lean towards choosing you when they're when it's ready, when they're ready to build a home or do a remodel? Is it your reviews, your credibility? What do you think helps you?

John Gioffre
Yeah. So, I mean, I have a saying that it's like 100% satisfaction or 100% of the time. We've never had one single project that we did not deliver 100% on. Woa! And now I think so there's like that, like you have to have the track record, like, here's my reviews, I'm good. But a lot of other companies have that.

John Gioffre
So what sets you apart? I think another thing honestly is in my sales approach, in it, I am so bluntly honest, I will just tell people, you know, I'll ask them questions about budgets and timelines and what their expectations are. And I will just tell them like, “Hey, I have to tell you right now we are markedly different. Like now, if you want to talk about how we can figure this out, that's okay.

John Gioffre
But if this is not a good fit for you, that's fine.” Woah. Right. So I'm always just the voice of blunt honesty. Well, so and so said they can do it in X amount of time. And I'm like, well, that's just a blatant lie. We don't even have a plans. Right. So, like a lot of people, especially early in their career, they think that being good at customer service is being a yes man, it is actually the opposite in construction.

John Gioffre
They are they're banking on us being the expert to guide them and sometimes that can be a little uncomfortable. And I think it takes a lot of purposely putting yourself in these uncomfortable situations to work through it. But I think that's something that people greatly appreciate from me. One the other thing is we are a very much like I call it, you know, full concierge service.

John Gioffre
So, for instance, people are like, can we buy our flooring and tile materials? No, you absolutely cannot. Why? Because I have a process. And this is laborious. There's you know, they shipped to the wrong place. It's damaged. We have to return it. There's back orders. It's like we handle everything. And I tell people, when everything goes right, you can praise me.

John Gioffre
If anything goes wrong, it's my fault. You come directly to me. So there's just this like, total accountability. Excellent. And then I think the last thing is, you know, they get it from me, right? I mean, I'm the owner of the company. Like I should uphold the values that I speak of. But once they meet my staff further and further down the line all the way to the tradesmen, they are just, you know, I hear this continuously.

John Gioffre
I cannot believe the caliber of people you have working for you. And I think, you know, I just tell people I would never have someone in your home that I wouldn't have in mine. Absolutley. So there's there's a lot of these factors that, you know, I think if you have one, you're good. But then you need to build and build and build to where they're evaluating you on all these criteria.

John Gioffre
And you want to you know, I won't say perfect, but you want to stand out in all those areas.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
Right. Excellent. Thank you for describing that process to me. It is indeed unique. You mentioned you believe in SEO and you're investing in SEO. Do you have an in-house team that does it? Do you outsource it? What are the things you do for SEO? So you’re found online? Because you're absolutely right, you have to keep updating the website and be current,

Rathna Ramakrishnan
so the Google algorithm knows that you exist. But what are some of the, do you have an in-house team? Do you outsource it? What are the things that you've done that have worked well for you?

John Gioffre
So I do outsource it. It's a team of three people. I pay about $5,000 a month, which sounds like a lot, but if you land, you know, a million dollar project and let's say it costs you 60 grand in the year, I mean, that's nothing. Right. You've paid yourself off four or five fold, right? So there's this this period where you have to understand that you're not going to see results for a minimum of six months.

John Gioffre
You just won't see anything. But what starts to happen is this snowball. Like you start to you know, it's like a big giant wave and the tide rises, right? So you really have to believe I think it's so tough because SEO is such a smoke and mirrors industry where like none of us builders, like most of us, if we’re not in technology really understand it. Right.

John Gioffre
So there's a lot of trust there, right? So I think you have to heavily, heavily vet these people because I've had I've gone through maybe four or five other companies and I didn't get good results. And I finally landed on one that I'm really happy with. Right. But okay, so another thing is many people think once you have the website, you're done.

John Gioffre
It's like, no, you are just getting started. I mean, we probably have 30 different pages in built into our website, right, where we're taking all of this, the keywords, which means like ‘Austin, Texas Custom Homebuilder’ or whatever, ‘ATX Luxury Builder.’ So a lot of the early timeframe, like the first few months, you're all you're testing hypothesis, you're testing what keywords work and you're embedding those words in all of your different pages and you have to have website copy, which is just all the words in your website, like a novel.

John Gioffre
And I wrote it all myself because I want it to be very personable. Well, then you send it to the SEO team and they embed all of these scientific. It really is a science. Yes, they like sneakily embed all the terms so that when people search them, Google will find you. Right. And basically in this day and age, if you are not doing SEO, you're going to get left behind unless you know, a lot of people have a great referral base.

John Gioffre
But you know, there's nothing like quantitative about that. With SEO, you can see how many people are searching for you, what clicks you're getting, how many of those are converting, all of that stuff. So there is just so much data and like testing and retesting to confirm all of that.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
Absolutely. That’s amazing how you actually understand SEO and you've committed to it. That's wonderful.

John Gioffre
Well, I really won't say that I understand it. I know more than I did, and I know I'm in good hands. But what I do understand is you see your trends. Exactly. And when you see everything moving upwards, you know you're doing something right.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
Right. The when I say understanding, it's the understanding that it takes time and it's a yes commitment to like keep doing it so you can enjoy the results from the fruits that you bear, yeah, overtime.

John Gioffre
Absolutely.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
And when you look at ads, do you set a certain budget? Like how do you arrive at the marketing spend for your company? Do you set the percentage? Yeah.

John Gioffre
So or yeah and, and that's also going to be like so a pay-per-click depending on what keywords you're attacking, like, you know, if they're really competitive or if it's a niche or if you're naturally good in it. So there's a lot of that. But I'd say usually we spend about 12 to 1500 a month on ads on Google, and then we spend about 12 to 1500 a month on ads on social media.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
Excellent. Yeah, cool. And do you have a plan in place for the leads that come in and don't convert? Do you follow up with them or do you email them? Do you have a newsletter? Yeah.

John Gioffre
And you know what? A lot of the time I will have I have a group of colleagues and other people that i’m mentoring that I will just I'll facilitate it going to someone that I want to help. And what's amazing is some of these people I've been helping for a year or two, then, you know, I'm getting consistent feedback that they're doing well and then they start coming in as maybe a subcontractor with us or, you know, tag teaming a project.

John Gioffre
So it's this really amazing way of making use of those leads that don't convert.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
Excellent. That's that's really very giving of you to give it to other young contractors to help them.

John Gioffre
Well, I mean, you know, I had people do the same for me and I just know what a grind it can be. Right. So giving back is like a big part of what I do. And I get a lot of satisfaction out of it.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
Amazing. So considering you've been in business so many years, is there anything related to marketing that you've tried and you've said enough like, I'm not going to do it anymore?

John Gioffre
You know, I'm actually a big believer that it's not the type of marketing you're doing, it's how you're doing it. Because okay, let's say you have like really great, like super long form content that like would, might be great on something like YouTube. If you try to do that on Instagram, you're going to flop. So I think it's more of like you have to learn the medium that you're doing it in or you have to have an expert there.

John Gioffre
So like for the most part, I'm trying to think I like. I don't think anything I've just said is like not useful. I think it all can be useful. To me I just focus on things that are going to get the biggest visibility. Like for me personally, I wouldn't invest in like a newspaper or a magazine, especially like local.

John Gioffre
Like there's some of these places that it's thousands and thousands, like I'm talking about $5,000 to get like a two page spread and you're like, this is only going to how many people, right? So like, I actually kind of vet that before I do it. So those are just things that I feel like I haven't done because I I'm like, why wouldn't I rather just go on Google and get in front of thousands and thousands of people, you know?

John Gioffre
So and I know that works for some people, but I think there's just a lot of stuff where people are just trying to put their hand in the cookie jar. Yeah, and you got to sniff that out. Is it really going to help me or is this just some local organization like doing a money grab? Right, Right.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
Good point. So I noticed you have about 47 Google reviews. What is your process in collecting reviews as you're finishing projects? Are you using a tool? Are you having your team ask for reviews? Do you personally write to the client? Like, what is your process?

John Gioffre
You know what's funny is I handle all the client facing stuff still. I do all the selling and then, yeah, I'll follow up with everyone. And usually they're just super happy at the end. And you know, you have to bug people a little bit. But I, you know, I go to Google My Business and I send them the link directly there and I'll just kind of keep bugging them about

Rathna Ramakrishnan
it. And then they oblige?

John Gioffre
Or sometimes, you know, it's almost like there's one little extra thing they want us to do or something like, all right, look, you either give me a good review and, you know, we weren’t gonna paint this room, but we will, you know, so there's like, certain funny things. But a lot of the time, like I said, this concierge service, we have a really personal relationship with the client.

John Gioffre
So a lot of the time it's just as easy as sending a link with a text. And I will say like a bit of advice is like, make sure you send that link at the right time. Yeah, because I tell clients this also, I say, “look, in the beginning, you're going to love me. You're going to love that we're making progress.”

John Gioffre
Like we're going to get out there, foundation and framing flies and then at a certain point it just feels like nothing's getting done and there's inspections and you're wondering where people are because we can't really move on to the next thing without getting the inspection on the previous blah, blah, blah. I'm like, “Three quarters of the way through you're going to be not a happy camper.

John Gioffre
You're going to be really tired from the remodel. You're going to be upset. Little things are going to tick you off.” There's just, you know, little obstacles that we've gone through that your patience is going to be low, so you don't want to send it at that time, right? You want to send it when you've like delivered the final product.

John Gioffre
And they're like, “Oh, my God, all of this trials and tribulations were so worth it!” Right? So like sending it at the right time is very key.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
Awesome. That's a great tip. So in terms of marketing, are you using any email marketing? Text marketing?

John Gioffre
Nope. I honestly personally hate email marketing. I think it's very spammy. I don't think anyone reads them really. And I don't want to bother people with it. Honestly, I think if I was going to do like I think if you're giving someone a really good deal or like if you're like, “Hey, we're having a Revent like customer appreciation party,” like stuff like that is really fun.

John Gioffre
But like, I don't know, I'm just not big. I have to unsubscribe on so many of my own that I just, I don't really do it.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
You feel inundated. Understandable. But tell me a few fun things about yourself. About your, I'm a mom to two boys. I've been a marketer for a decade. So tell me some fun things about yourself.

John Gioffre
Oh, cool. Yeah. So I have two girls, one's eight and one's two. They kind of run my life along with my wife. I met my wife in eighth grade, actually, crazy enough. Yeah. So we have she's been through it all with me. She's really like our CFO too. So she does a lot of our financial forecasting and working with our CPA and things like that.

John Gioffre
So yeah, there's like a really fun dynamic there, which is also tough. Right? But, you know, I just had this epiphany like maybe three or four years ago where I was like, if we're paying other people to like, trust them, like managing our money and like, trust the financial success of our company, I'm like, Geez, like, I trust no one more than my wife.

John Gioffre
And, you know, there was some learning curve, but we basically got with a few professionals and, you know, gave her the tools that she needed and she's killing it. Amazing. Ever since I did that, everything business, personal, it just started taking off because I used to do all that crap. And I am I'm not going to lie. I'm not good in that area.

John Gioffre
I need to stay in my lane and so I was also an athlete. I was undefeated state, Texas State Heavyweight Champion in wrestling. Wow. Yeah, I played football at Rice University. Always just been like very competitive. And yeah, you know, basically, like, I'm a pretty big showman also. I did an acting class for fun, like my senior year in college.

John Gioffre
And then they maybe the lead role of a Shakespeare play. So I think a lot of that, you know, this gregariousness and I like to have fun and just so much joy in life, putting that all in front of a camera and putting it out to people has been a game changer. And everyone I talked to, even myself, you feel kind of silly and stupid and like it's kind of narcissistic feeling in the beginning.

John Gioffre
There's a lot of discomfort, but like once you put it all out there and when you're genuine, it's such an amazing tool to network with people. And you know, so furthermore, sorry if I'm going on about myself, love it. It's one of my easiest topics to talk about. But I built a home called the Modern Victorian. I don't know if you saw it on my website.

John Gioffre
It's like that black gothic looking home. Yeah, it was like my pride and joy and, you know, building up this social media following and YouTube and everything, it got like 30 to 40 million views on Instagram.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
Amazing.

John Gioffre
Everyone in the city of Austin knows me as the builder of the Modern Victorian and it's just been like this amazing culmination of like all the hard work I've done on various projects and like building up the social media and all that time spent. And it came together in this one project and it was just like a rocket ship.

John Gioffre
Congratulations. And I think, thank you. And that's a moment that anyone that like makes it big on social or marketing. They talk about this moment where like everything just kind of lines up. And I just thought that was like such a beautiful thing. And I really wish, you know, like, I want to tell anyone, if you're starting on this journey and you're new at it, give it some years.

John Gioffre
You know, we're talking five plus years and you're going to have one of these types of moments where you just feel like things are clicking and you kind of take off.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
Absolutely. Yeah. That's amazing that you had that many million followers like following those your videos.

John Gioffre
Yes. It was actually insane. Yeah. And, you know, my biggest investor ever, he saw me. He followed that whole build he’s and it impressed him so much that he's literally invested multimillion dollars. We're doing our three biggest projects ever. And one is double the Modern Victorian. So that was $3 million. We're doing a $6 million house and then we're doing a $10 million house, all financed from one individual that followed me on social media.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
Amazing, amazing. You have really put social media to amazing use. You've gone viral basically from your efforts.

John Gioffre
Yeah. I mean, you know, you can go viral and it'd be bad too, right? So like I'm glad it was for something a little bit more positive.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
So considering you do so much you’re client facing and you manage your team and for a young contractor, if you were to advise them on time management, are there tools that you use to manage your time? You have a favorite book that you’ve read that kind of stands out and helps you through your business life? Is there any wisdom that you'd like to share with younger contractors?

John Gioffre
Yeah, honestly, Gary Keller is the one thing is absolutely incredible. He was actually a business partner of mine. Oh! In my the first company that I was part of in Austin. So that was an incredible experience. But that was the biggest takeaway. It's just that like 20% of your effort can garner 80% of the results. So I find that a lot of people fall into this trap of making these kind of meaningless to do lists.

John Gioffre
And they feel like if they're knocking out all of these tasks, that they're going somewhere. And if they're not tasks that are extremely important, all you're doing is spinning your wheels. You're wasting your time. So it's better. Like if you just need to focus on where to get your next project and landing your next project, everything else can go to the wayside.

John Gioffre
It's like that is what's going to put food on your table, focus on the things that you need most. You know? Yeah, when you're in a job with a client, it has to run smoothly. You have to deliver that 100%, 100% of the time. Right? But still, there's so many ways to get there smarter, not harder.

John Gioffre
Right. And that book is just it'll blow your mind. It's almost weird. It feels like cheating, but it's like, yes, just focus on the important things and those deliver the important results.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
Absolutely. Yep. I love that book as well. I’ve read it too.

John Gioffre
Oh cool.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
So are you using any AI in your business, Chat GPT and.

John Gioffre
Yes, we use Chat GBT for like a bunch of our headings and for our videos and like scripts that we write and just coming up with different ideas too. We also use a program called Midjourney. Yes. Which is, yeah, which is a visual AI, it's we can just spit out ideas for homes and it comes up with some really cool stuff that you know, like by itself might not be that great, but it can spark some ideas in you.

John Gioffre
We also use an invoicing software called Adaptive that uses AI to you send the invoice into Adaptive, it reads all the information from it, categorizes everything for you. So it's almost taking the position of a bookkeeper.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
Wow.

John Gioffre
It's absolutely fantastic.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
Adaptive. Is that what it's called?

John Gioffre
Adaptive. Yes. They’re a game changer.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
Cool. What about other software are you using Buildertrend or?

John Gioffre
Yes, I use Buildertrend. I think they're I think Buildertrend is a little bit can be too much for someone that's early on. Yeah. And it can really feel that way but how they do their pricing is if you're not doing that many homes or projects per year, it's not that expensive. It's better to get it.

John Gioffre
They have free trainings, the scheduling and like project management tools in there are amazing and you can have all of that be accessed by the client. They have unlimited data storage. So you can put all of your insurance, every single plan, every single bid. You know, it just helps with organization. But for actual estimates, I used a software called Joist.

John Gioffre
Whoa. Super easy. Incredibly intuitive. So for invoicing and estimates, that's what I use.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
So as a contractor, what year did you start using technology to help you? Did you go and invest and Buildertrend, Adaptive, these kinds of tools right away? Or do you did you just do it in an old fashioned spreadsheet and said, “Okay, yeah, now is the time.”

John Gioffre
I beat my head against the wall in the beginning, I would like write estimates in like Microsoft Word and like, just like, you know, like to me it's like appearances are everything you get a simple program that you put your logo in and it has the whole backend and the structure and they don't even realize it's a different company.

John Gioffre
You send them this invoice from Buildertrend or Joist or whatever it is, and it just looks like so much more professional, right? That's another way to stand out. You know, I also went to law school. I graduated law school, so I was really, really good at writing. So I use that to my like in my benefit where I would write these very detailed project scopes of what we were and were not doing and just like spell checking everything

John Gioffre
like there is some skill that everyone has that they have an edge. You know, you might be super creative, you know, incorporate that into your logo or, you know, maybe a custom email signature. Like there's so many different ways that you can shine and you have to find that and kind of, you know, like even if you think it's insignificant, it's not.

John Gioffre
If people are like, “Wow, like, I just love the picture that you had at the bottom of your email of one of your projects,” or whatever it is, it'll make people remember you. Right.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
Right. Very cool. Any additional nuggets of wisdom that you'd like to share with new contractors? People in the industry?

John Gioffre
Yes. My mantra is there is always a path forward.

Rathna Ramakrishnan


John Gioffre
Sometimes I don't know how many times, countless times I've been in a position where I just thought like, “Man, I really backed myself into a corner,” you know, like the you know, not to be too punny, the house is going to tumble down, right? It's like there's so many of these obstacles that when you face it for the first time, it seems like super treacherous and

John Gioffre
it will derail you. But persistence is all you need. There is always a path forward, whether it's you just admitting you were wrong and redoing something. Right. You know, it's like that very rarely will you hear something that is like career ending or devastating, you know, So just knowing that you can work your way through everything has been very comforting for me.

John Gioffre
But find a mentor. The mentors that have been through all of the crap, they will let you know that it's not that big of a deal. Do this, this and that. Oh, my God. I thought I just I thought I had to rip this whole house down and start over. You know, we missed. There's a little wire.

John Gioffre
It's called the grounding wire, and they call it a UFER, but you have to put in your foundation before you pour it or you can't pass your final. And we missed it. And I was like, “Oh my God, I have to tear out the foundation.” Whoa, whoa, man call this engineer. They'll test it. You can even ship ten feet and put it in there.

John Gioffre
Like there's just always things. Just because you don't know the answer doesn't mean they're there isn't one.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
Amazing. Excellent. So considering we are already in Q4, how do you plan for the new year?

John Gioffre
I just plan by staying as busy as I can. Whenever you get like a moment to breathe, it's a weird feeling you have to look in like, am I breathing because things are going really well or am I breathing because I'm about to hit a gap in my schedule? Right. So I think what I tell people is stress that's being very busy being overworked.

John Gioffre
Stress is fine because you just work through it. Worry on the other hand, when you don't have enough projects, when you're worrying about where your next job is going to come from, that is extremely tough to work through. So before you overlook this small project or maybe a client that you think is a little bit too needy, like, you know, if you're early on, I basically said no to nothing.

John Gioffre
You know, we would do bathrooms for $5,000, whereas now our master baths are $150,000, right? So it's like, don't think you're above anything when you're first starting out. You need that track record, you need that experience. Go out and get it.

Rathna Ramakrishnan
Excellent. Very cool. I absolutely enjoyed speaking to you. Thank you for making the time.

John Gioffre
Thank you so much for having me. It was my pleasure.