VINCE BUTLER Butler Brothers, Clifton, Va.
At Butler Brothers, Vince Butler is taking a less-is-more approach, refining his company’s focus rather than broadening it. For 44 years the company has done a range of construction work, including commercial remodeling, custom home building, and, most recently, full-service remodeling. Now, though, Butler is narrowing his target, reshaping Butler Brothers as a high-end kitchen and bath specialist.
Butler says the decision was based on regular analysis of the company’s performance on jobs — job autopsies showed that the company consistently performed best on kitchen and bath jobs.
“The goal is to maximize profitability and keep the risk as low as possible,” Butler says. “We’re better on those focused jobs than on large-scale jobs that have a thousand-and-one loose ends. When we can get a limited area of focus and reduce the variables, we seem to do much better.”
Butler Brothers made the transition gradually, beginning by first hiring kitchen and bath specialists, then refining supply chains, and going straight to manufacturers to cut better deals and gain more control over product delivery.
“The idea is to, as much as possible, cut out the middleman,” Butler says, “so there’s less chance for mistakes … We know there’s no one in between who’s going to screw up an order; we know what the availability is; what the true strengths and weaknesses of the product are. We can also get guaranteed delivery dates so we have things when we need them and don’t have to stockpile.”
Butler also expects his employees to become increasingly familiar not just with products and materials but with all the components of kitchen and bath projects. “We can systematize the jobs: Even though each one is unique, the components are the same. By working with the same products, our workers are better versed in how to install them, how they work, and what the nomenclature is.”
Another advantage of a fixed focus, Butler says, is that the company draws from a smaller pool of subs, leading to better relationships. “We had any number of subs, but we only had a few we regularly used,” he says. “If you’re not one of their regulars, you don’t have a lot of leverage. By working in a niche, we tend to work with the same subs on a regular basis every week.”
Most important to the transition, but initially overlooked, was an amped-up marketing effort that grew the company’s marketing budget from a negligible few thousand dollars to more than $40,000 this year. Part of the initiative is focused on re-branding the company as a kitchen and bath specialist. Butler says he should have made that effort earlier in the process to make up for leads that dropped off when the company began turning down regular jobs.
“You must be prepared to spend a significant sum on marketing,” Butler says. “You can’t just go and turn away the generic leads without something to replace them with.”
David Zuckerman writes frequently on construction topics from his home in Brooklyn, N.Y.