But while the industry might once have been more cutthroat, for many remodelers today, collaboration and a desire for mutual advancement are increasingly common. In some areas, association roundtables bring companies together. Meeting regularly with eight or so competitors through his local National Association of the Remodeling Industry chapter, Anschel says he feels no need to keep closed off. “I don’t think there are any real secrets or things we wouldn’t share with those firms. Information is only as valuable as what you do with it,” he says.
Some remodelers, finding associations too impersonal and, in the words of one remodeler, concerned too much with their own preservation, have taken the roundtable concept a step further by creating more personal local support groups. San Francisco Bay Area industry consultant Judith Miller leads the Northern California Splinter Group, so named because its members splintered off from the local association. The group brings together like-minded owners to discuss issues specific to running a midsize upscale company —issues less frequently addressed by associations that look to benefit companies of all stripes and sizes.
Inspired by Miller’s group, Mark Scott of Mark IV Builders, a full-service remodeling company in Bethesda, Md., helped found a Washington, D.C., version. He says the impetus behind his Splinter Group was to create an environment that would be more likely than an association to produce an honest accounting of participants’ troubles.
“I wanted to build a better communication vehicle,” he says. “At our meetings, it’s safe to bring up issues we’re having trouble with, and it’s a place where we’re all comfortable enough with each other to say, ‘You’re full of it, you’re wrong, you shouldn’t try to do that and here’s why.’”
Jeff Rainey, co-owner of Home Equity Builders in Arlington, Va., is another member of the D.C. group. Rainey says the group’s success depends on members’ willingness to think about the business in terms that aren’t strictly bottom-line. “It works quite well,” he says, “because of a mutual respect we have for one another’s companies.”
David Zuckerman is a freelance writer based in Brooklyn, N.Y. they feel like, ‘Oh, he gets me.’”