Today we’d like to introduce you to Mike Warner.
Hi Mike, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Construction Specialties started in 2015 out of a desire to provide a service that focused on the customer’s needs and the experience they had during the residential remodeling process. Not just craftsmanship. Over the years we have grown from 1 person, me, to a small group and two partners, to a team of 16 employees. Our services include not only onsite remodeling and project management, but a remodeling experience that begins with the initial planning, goes through full professional design with our in-house interior design staff, management of the architecture, blueprints and permitting when needed, and collaboration with local subcontractors that have been part of our team for years, so they are fully vetted and incredible. This vertical integration produces an experience for the homeowner that feels well managed, controlled, systematic, transparent, personal, and produces consistently excellent results. We have won the Best of Lawrence competition for 6 years straight and enjoy a large fan base of previous and repeat customers that have become our family.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
We have grown consistently over the past 10 years, each year looking different than the last. With that has come the struggles that every growing business has. Cash flow, management of employees, scaling our vendors and contractors, building systems and processes, and larger overhead associated with all of that. The business started through a love of problem solving and has continued in that vein, only the problems to solve have changed! We are a partnership now with two owners that are very distinct personalities but complement each other. Nick Walters and I are both very passionate about our mission here and hope to Never Stop Improving this company. Both of us started life with very little, have climbed mountains along the way, and have done our best to be the best in our market. Along the way Covid was a huge struggle just trying to figure out which end was up. With very little real guidance from anyone, small businesses were just kind of left to figure it out on their own. We are a very mixed bag of people at Construction Specialties and the Lawrence community holds a very broad range of beliefs and values so being sensitive to all of that was a real challenge. Now that we are larger, the new hurdle is becoming communication. Communicating to our customers, communicating to the entire staff, our vendors, contractors, and the community is something that we work on every day.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Construction Specialties is a residential remodeling company serving primarily Lawrence Kansas. We specialize in Kitchens, Bathrooms, Additions, and building relationships with our customers. We are known for being incredibly detailed and providing the best level of finish quality to our projects. What sets us apart is our interior design capability and the field crew’s commitment to being clean, friendly, and producing the best results. Our process is very thorough and planned so the projects happen like they are supposed to. These things culminate in a remodeling experience that is much more than most customers expect.
Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs or other resources you think our readers should check out?
Death by meeting, Start with Why, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Greenlights, The E-Myth. All are great books. My greatest resources currently are my teammates here at Construction Specialties. They are each one better than I am at their individual functions and are all committed to excellence here. I’ve never worked at a place with a better team. We all row the boat and we are even facing the same direction!
Pricing:
- Competitive to our product offering.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.homeimprovementlawrence.com
- Instagram: constructionspecialties_ks
- Facebook: ConstructionSpecialtiesks
- Youtube: @ConstructionSpecialtiesKansas
