When Primus Builders Inc. started growing, Richard O’Connell faced the difficult challenge of transitioning the design-build engineering and construction firm from a small business, where he could do everything himself, into a larger organization. For the first time, he had to come to terms with the fact that other people would do things differently than himself, but their way could still be successful.
“I’m satisfied with the results, but everyone has different processes to get a task done,” the president and founding partner says. “That’s been tough, because the company for the first two or three years was just a handful of people, and it doubled and tripled and quadrupled, so obviously you just can’t do everything and be everything to everybody.”
O’Connell has adapted, and today, he has 36 employees whom he’s learned to trust, and the team collectively has made the firm a roughly $65 million business.
Smart Business spoke with O’Connell about the principles that have helped him successfully grow his business.
Focus on your customers. It is important how you deliver a project and how you service your customer and the quality product that you put out. There were some expectations along the way to meet standards, so it wasn’t a total hand-off-the-wheel approach of just get it done on this date and under budget and we’re satisfied. We place a high emphasis on our customers. One of our strengths is we seldom or rarely ever lose a customer and that’s been a big key of our growth.
We’ve developed these customers over the years and it’s our job to make sure they’re getting exactly what they expected and getting the level of service they’re expecting.
Don’t take the customers for granted. Be your customer’s advocate inside your office. It’s easy for people to get off track in what’s important for the customer. It doesn’t hurt to go out and take them to lunch once a month. You’re in the area, you’re making a sales call, so you’ll say, ‘Hey, I’m in the neighborhood — do you mind if I come by and I take you out to lunch?’ Be there when they don’t have projects going on, as well. Just don’t take it for granted. Communication is key. We just want to always be providing a service.