The Catalyst for Pushing Our Industry Forward

By Chris Falasco, COO/President, Endeavor Exteriors.

Focus on the opportunities instead of the hardships.

In October of 2008, the start of the financial crisis was well underway. It was a crisis brought on by a period of over exuberance in the financial industry and one that caused massive ripple effects in our society for the months and years to come. But like all other crises before that, and likely all crises to come, there were companies and people who chose to focus on the opportunities that would come from these hardships.

A little unknown taxi company chose to be one of those companies. They navigated the crisis with a focus on their mission, blocking out the external events that were happening all around them. Fueled by the opportunity to provide people with a better service than what was currently offered in the marketplace and in a time where uncertainty led people to scrutinize every purchase. To win in this environment, they focused on building services and products that met the needs of people. It took a while to hit mainstream, but that little taxi company that was started during the financial crisis became Uber. A company that has completely changed mass transportation as we know it.

Now, in April of 2020, we found ourselves in a similar situation. With the spread of a highly contagious virus without a vaccine, the public uncertainty and fear has led to what will likely be one of the most dramatic economical events in many of our lifetimes. The sheer range of industries that this pandemic has impacted is unprecedented. It seems that every business has been impacted and we’re likely only beginning to understand the health and economic impacts of this event. Nobody knows what the future holds, and we don’t pretend to know either. What we do know is that from this event, new opportunities will be born. Industries will be redefined by necessity - we are already seeing this with the mass influx of using digital tools to help companies and people stay engaged and working. With this catalyst, we believe people and companies who were reluctant to transition into a digital landscape will either a.) begin their slow decline into irrelevance or b.) innovate their processes and their business to first survive this event, and then thrive when we’re on the other side of this event. This pandemic will not be kind to the old way of doing business and the construction industry is not as insulated as some might think.

Our company, Endeavor Exteriors, is based out of Denver, Colorado and has been working on the integration of technology and construction for the past five years. We are a full exterior contractor that focuses on residential, commercial, and multifamily exterior remodeling; roofing, siding, windows, gutters, painting, concrete/asphalt, among others. We have already seen the impact this virus has had on our local construction industry and have seen other areas that have been hit even harder. Our local industry may be more insulated than some with the annual hail storms that most contractors have come to rely upon, but even then, the trends in the insurance industries are showing more policies and actions being taken on behalf of the carriers that are trending towards lower and lower payouts. We have seen this as a threat for much longer than the threat of the pandemic and can’t help but think about how the insurance carriers will react to this event by furthering their action and speeding up their timelines for lower payouts. All these external events speak to one thing that we can all be certain of: change is coming.

At our company, we view change as a great opportunity. It takes long term thinking to adopt a belief that change is good but when we have a catalyst moment like we have now, change tends to happen more quickly. Over the past four weeks, we have seen unprecedented change occur in our industry and in our business. Our business has gone into full remote work, like most businesses around the country. We have shifted sales presentations to virtual presentations. We have shifted pre-construction, construction, and post-construction processes to be executed digitally. We have increased communications to our clients and customers in digital formats, providing them with daily logs, photos, and videos of their projects, so they can still trust in the process without having to meet people in person. Making all of these changes and focusing on doing them well for our customers is just the tip of the Iceberg.

The changes that are being made now will pave the road ahead for our industry as a whole. More companies are using technologies like Hover and Acculynx to bring their businesses on-line. These are all great, and it shows progress in an industry that has historically been stifled with dogmatic thinking. With this event, we see this becoming the catalyst for permanent change. More of “out with the old” and “in with the new” that is now being forced by these circumstances.

Like most of the forward-thinking companies out there, we are excited for the changes that lay ahead for the industry and the changes that we’re making now that will improve our business for the long term. Our path forward is to continue to innovate the internal processes that our employees execute day to day and use technology to help make those processes simpler and more enjoyable for every employee. Using technology like Hover, helps our estimators and sales team in the field create beautiful 3D renderings of our customers’ homes and properties. This empowers our team to be more hands on in the field and during the design process with our customers. We are also creating simple to use estimating tools using technology to empower our teams with more accurate estimating scopes that dramatically reduce the time needed to estimate. We are using drone technology to map out large complexes and do virtual inspections to determine if in-person inspections are needed. This drone technology will also be used to build storm damage reports by using machine learning algorithms designed to identify storm damage to a property. All of this is being done in the name of efficiency and a better experience for the customer, an experience that is unique to each person. Scaling these processes to impact thousands of customers is our focus.

Our use of operating systems will be another focus in the months and years ahead. Automating the mundane tasks that can be easily delegated to a computer program will allow our team to be more focused on our customers. Using these operating systems to build better efficiencies in the construction process so that our customers can benefit from lower and lower costs since unneeded waste won’t be built in. Systems for our crew members that will benefit them in their day to day operations, using tools to streamline the scheduling, ordering, and payment processing workflows that eliminate confusion and distraction so everyone can be a part of a harmonious system working together.

We have big dreams at Endeavor Exteriors and we’re committed to executing on these dreams. We have a long road ahead of us and nothing is certain. What is certain is that we control our focus and our direction. Yes, we react to the situations we can’t control, but we still make progress towards that vision. During this time, we ask you, the people who make this industry so wonderful, focus on what you can control. Make this a time of progress and advancement. Focus on your technology and processes. Talk to your customers and see what they like and didn’t like about their experience, and brainstorm ways to improve it. If you do all of that well, we’ll be excited to see you on the other side of this, with an industry that is stronger than it was before.

To hear more about what we’re doing, reach out to our team at sales@endeavorexteriors.com, we would be happy to talk with you!