Twenty-Three Years Ago…

Twenty-three years ago, my father founded Cornerstone Construction to serve commercial and multi-family customers in Raleigh.

From the beginning, one of our main differentiators has been that we simply do quality work reliably and consistently. It seems almost too elementary, I know. But that’s really it. Folks just appreciate that we do what we say we will do, and they show this appreciation by giving us repeat business and referring their colleagues to us when there’s a new construction project afoot.

You know, it makes me feel like our family’s construction business is something of a cornerstone in Raleigh (drum riff, ha).

The Downside of Being a Well-Oiled Machine

Anyway, the upside of this, of course, is that we always stay busy, the phone keeps ringing, and our hammers stay swinging. The downside, though, is that it’s a bit out of character for a well-oiled machine to pump the brakes to reflect. Cornerstone is that well-oiled machine–awesome, sure–but I’m a believer that no matter how adept a business becomes at serving its customers, there’s always room for improvement.

My 2015 Resolution

As VP and apparent heir to the throne here, I made a resolution at the beginning of this year to pump the brakes more often. Stepping away from the metaphor, that means I made a decision to talk to customers more often to ask for their candid feedback on how we’re doing.

Although it would be easier to just make the assumption, “since customers keep doing repeat business with us, we must be doing everything right,” assumptions is not what Cornerstone is about. Just like in construction, where you “measure twice and cut once,” the best practitioners challenge assumptions and replace them with hard data.

So that’s what my goal is this year: ask our customers, “why do you buy from us?” By leaving my hardhat at the office for just a couple of hours a week to sit down and chat with our customers one-on-one, I can begin to gather hard, qualitative data from the men and women who, for the last twenty-three years, have been voting for Cornerstone with their dollars.

Why?

More than just saying thank-you, the best way I know how to show my appreciation for the folks who entrust us with their business is to simply ask, why do you buy from us? What are we doing right? What are we doing wrong? Let’s talk.

It’s your opinions that matter most.