Amie Riggs, Riggs Construction, St. Louis
Though Amie Riggs, 31, has risen to vice president and sales manager at her father’s construction company — the firm she and her younger brother will one day own — she says that early in her life she was “absolutely not” planning on a career in this industry.
Indeed, after Riggs attended college, she taught early childhood education for three years, and then decided to go into real estate. While studying for her license, she worked part-time at Riggs Construction, where her aunt was office manager. With no office space available, Amie shared a Formica counter with the fax machine, and now refers to her first position with the company as “lobby girl.”
Tom Riggs liked his daughter’s work and presence so much that he offered her a full-time job, and she accepted. “I was being groomed as the office manager,” Amie recalls, “because that’s what women do. What else would I do?”
Eventually, Amie began going on sales calls, with the task of taking notes. “Again,” she says, “that’s what a woman does.”
But something remarkable started happening during those client visits. “We found more times than not, the female homeowners were speaking to me,” she recalls.
Amie also became aware of a flaw in the company’s system of using allowances for product selections and then sending clients to suppliers to make their choices. “Sometimes we hit and most times we missed,” Tom Riggs said of the allowances. “When we missed, the allowances chosen were always well under what the actual costs were, so it left our clients feeling cheated or not listened to.”
The clients, Amie says, “needed more guidance.” To remedy the situation, she devised a position for herself called “selections coordinator.” She created a spreadsheet for each project, took clients shopping, coordinated ordering and deliveries, and went to the site to make sure everything arrived.
Other innovations Amie has brought to the company include:
- Introducing Nextel phones with walkie-talkie capability into the company. “I got sick of wearing a pager,” she says.
- Computerizing many of the company’s processes, which were previously on paper, including putting estimates into spreadsheets.
- Initiating the use of digital cameras on job-sites, and the practice of videotaping projects.
Creating a marketing plan. “We have never, never, never had a marketing plan,” she said. “I’m not kidding.” That included hiring a public relations firm to help with advertising and graphics, and a new campaign with the twin tags of “Riggs Total Home” and “Yes, I Can.” Over the years, a plan evolved for Amie and her brother Bill to take over the company that was founded by their grandfather in 1959.
Eventually, Amie had to give up her prized selections coordinator position to another employee when Tom Riggs asked his daughter to become the company’s sales manager. She accepted, she says, because “It would be easier to transition to owner from sales.”
According to Tom, both of his children have “challenged the old ‘tried and true’ ways of doing things,” which he likes.
Bill, 28, had been working in the field as project manager and a trim carpenter, but was recently brought into the office where Amie is grooming him for sales. When the company lands in their hands in 2013, they anticipate that Amie will run the office and Bill will run the field.
Amie’s enthusiasm and bubbly personality are refreshing to the entire company, her father says.
“Remember,” Tom Riggs adds, “I started out as a carpenter boss who used intimidation, fear, and pure bullying to ‘kick butt and take names.’ So it was a great relief to the staff when Amie began as sales manager and I stepped further and further away from the everyday running of the company.”