The Why We Build Podcast!

This episode digs into what it takes for a local plumbing company to compete as private equity money reshapes the trades. Max Hicks, founder of Reliant Plumbing, shares how he went from a teenage work program and union plumbing to building a multi-market company across Texas. We discuss scaling without losing service quality, communicating value when bigger brands dominate the market, and why Max believes staying independent still makes sense for his business.Key topicsMax Hicks shares how his plumbing career started at 16 through a work program after school was not a fit for him.He explains how early experience in new construction and commercial work taught him hard work, but service plumbing is where he found his passion.In this episode, Max breaks down how he started Reliant Plumbing from a borrowed van, a small tool set, and almost no service experience.He describes the mindset of building a business instead of just creating another job for himself, and how that shaped every hiring decision.Max says growth came from filling roles only when the business truly needed them, then training someone else to take over.We discuss how private equity changed the market, especially lead costs, competition, and the pressure to show up with stronger systems and sales.Max shares that scaling across Texas required the right people in the right seats, especially for market expansion into cities like San Antonio.He says one of the hardest parts of growth is financial discipline—wanting to keep more of the money instead of reinvesting everything back into expansion.Max explains why he chose to stay independent: he loves the work, values flexibility, and does not want the identity shift that can come after a sale.He talks about communicating value by focusing on talent, advertising, and honest self-awareness about what the company is and is not best at.Max advises other owners facing private equity interest to think hard about what they want after a sale and to understand why the buyer wants the business.Follow Reliant Plumbing of TikTok @reliantplumbing_txReady to build a stronger, more profitable remodeling business? Visit RemodelersAdvantage.com to discover the resources, coaching, and community designed to help remodelers grow with confidence—without losing what makes their business unique.

Greg Woleck talks with Jef Forward, founder, president, and owner of Forward Design Build Remodel in Ann Arbor, Michigan, about what it really takes to improve leadership from the top down. The conversation centers on self-awareness, vulnerability, and how Jef is using AI and DISC profiles to coach himself and his team in real time.Key topicsIn this episode, Jef explains why leadership development often fails when everyone except the owner gets training, and why change has to begin with the person signing the checks.He describes the shift from doing everything himself to becoming a true head coach, with his role focused on strategy, culture, and helping others lead.Jef shares how peer groups, coaches, and books like The Five Levels of Leadership and Multipliers reshaped his view of leadership.He breaks down Liz Wiseman’s idea of the accidental diminisher and gives examples of how leaders can shut teams down by answering too quickly, monologuing, or flooding a conversation with too many ideas.Jef explains how he uses Claude as an AI coaching board to prepare for meetings, review his communication style, and get feedback based on his own DISC profile and the other person’s profile.Jef says the goal is not scripts, but better thinking, better questions, and more confident conversations with clients and teammates.He outlines how his team is beginning to use AI to reduce administrative friction, including turning transcripts into task updates and creating “what to say” preparation tools for difficult client conversations.He talks candidly about rollout challenges, including team skepticism, fear of replacement, and the need to introduce new systems slowly.He highlights the company’s broader operational goal of creating a single source of truth so sales, design, production, and leadership stay aligned.He closes with a strong leadership principle: be vulnerable, ask for help, and let your team see that you do not have all the answers.Notable quotes“You are not a leader until you have built a leader.”“The number one step you can take to be a better version of yourself as a leader is to be vulnerable.”“What would an honest coach tell me about my own blind spots?”Find out moreLearn more about Jef and Forward Design Build Remodel at planforward.net. Learn more about the remodeling community and resources from Remodelers Advantage at www.remodelersadvantage.com.

EPISODE SUMMARYIf you pulled your last 10 change orders and sorted them into two piles — things you truly couldn't have known, and things the client added or you didn't nail down up front — which pile would be bigger? For most design-build firms, it's the second pile, and Greg opens this episode arguing that's not a field problem. It's a design and sales problem that showed up late.Greg is joined by Will Pritiken, founder of Aforma Design Studio, an embedded design practice built specifically for builders, architects, and developers who need real design capacity without standing up a full in-house team. Will ran construction and did development work before starting his own design-build company in Portland, then built Aforma after fellow Remodelers Advantage roundtable members asked him to bail out their stalled design projects. The conversation covers why design gets treated as a lost leader instead of a profit center, why the 20–30% contingency in your pricing might be covering for decisions that were never made rather than risks nobody could have predicted, and how a structured design partnership protects your client relationship, your brand, and your margin.RESOURCES & LINKSAforma Design Studio: aforma.coEmail Will: [email protected] or [email protected] mentioned: Upstream by Dan HeathRemodelers Advantage: RemodelersAdvantage.comLearn more about Remodelers Advantage Roundtables, production and design manager groups, consulting services, and other programs at RemodelersAdvantage.com. Questions or episode ideas? Email Greg at [email protected].

If a homeowner asked an AI assistant, not Google, an actual AI assistant to find the best remodeler in the area, would your company even come up?Homeowners are increasingly skipping the search results page and just asking AI tools like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Claude for a recommendation — then calling one of the one or two names they get back. Your site can rank great on Google and still be invisible to that conversation.In this episode, host Greg Wallach talks with Thomas Harpointner, founder and CEO of AIS Media, Inc., a 20-plus-year digital marketing and strategy agency in Atlanta. Thomas breaks down why AI search is the biggest shift in digital marketing he's seen in two decades, why some clients have seen 30–60% drops in organic traffic even as their Google rankings improved, and — most importantly — what a remodeler can do this week to start earning citations and recommendations from AI.You'll learn:Why AI tools act as a new "middleman" between homeowners and remodelers, and how that changes the rules of the gameWhat signals AI systems look for before they'll cite or recommend a business (hint: it's all about authority and trust)Why the opportunity isn't just Google anymore — Reddit, Pinterest, YouTube, and trade publications all feed AI answersA simple, three-step plan to start building AI visibility this week, no big budget requiredWhy traditional SEO isn't dead — and how it still forms the foundation of AI trustNotable quote: "The AI has to know that you exist. Otherwise you are just a magic trick in the dark." — Thomas HarpointnerResources mentioned:AIS Media, Inc.: aismedia.com (free AI search guide available now)Remodelers Advantage: RemodelersAdvantage.comGo ask an AI assistant who the best remodeler is in your area and see what comes back — then share this episode with whoever owns your website and marketing.Learn more about Remodelers Advantage Roundtables, production and design manager groups, consulting services, and other programs at RemodelersAdvantage.com. Questions or episode ideas? Email Greg at [email protected].

EPISODE SUMMARYEvery design-build owner has lived this moment: an early budget gets a client excited, the design gets refined, and the real estimate lands 20–30% higher. Jason Langkammerer, President of AT6 Architecture + Design Build in the San Francisco Bay Area, walks through the system his firm built to close that gap — the “Design (Un)certainty Contingency.” Borrowed from the commercial construction “cone of uncertainty” and sparked by a conversation with Ian Schwandt of TDS Design Build, the approach bakes a shrinking contingency percentage into every budget from the first proposal through final pricing. As the design firms up, the contingency comes down — and the two numbers meet in the middle. Jason and Greg dig into the mechanics, how to present it to clients without sounding like padding, and what it takes to finally stop dreading the final-estimate conversation.GUESTJason Langkammerer, President, AT6 Architecture + Design Build — at6db.comDesign-build runs in Jason's family — his father was both an architect and a contractor. Jason grew up between the Craftsman and Victorian homes of Berkeley and a decade immersed in modern architecture in Los Angeles, a dual perspective that shaped his design philosophy. AT6 started as a design-only practice before Jason brought construction in-house to give clients a smoother, more coordinated path from concept to completion. He still personally guides every project's budget from initial estimate through final pricing.RESOURCES & LINKS• AT6 Architecture + Design Build: at6db.com• Ian Schwandt / TDS Design Build — mentioned for his Substack on production and construction numbers• Remodelers Advantage: remodelersadvantage.com