Meet the Pro

Kendall NeSmith is the owner of Hill Haven Homes and Renovations in San Antonio, Texas. His company specializes in home renovation projects and new builds, serving clients who want quality work and exceptional service. As a growing business operating for five years, they've learned the hard way that having the right systems can make or break your success.

The Problem

Before discovering Materio, Hill Haven was drowning in paperwork and miscommunication. "We were using Excel and notebooks and file folders," Kendall explains. "We had our selection files in Excel with links and had project folders set up for everything, and then we take that, we print it, we put it in a Manila folder that we would take to projects."

The manual process was exhausting:

"Every time a client made a change, we would go back into the Excel file, make the change, print it, put it back in the folder, and then kind of just hope we had it all right."

But hope wasn't enough. The real problems came from miscommunication and outdated information reaching the field.

"A client would make a change and they would text a change to us, and then they would expect that that would get updated in the file and then out to everyone. What we find out is that when a change got updated the night before, the guys showed up to do an install... that old paperwork was still there, and so they grabbed that paperwork and start the install."

The results were devastating:

"You walk into a house and you just kind of your head sinks and you almost want to just turn around and walk away slowly, because you realize that what was trying to be conveyed wasn't conveyed... We had several times where we would look back and a design is not shown right, or a trade doesn't have the latest design document."

The breaking point came during a particularly frustrating evening.

"My wife and I were sitting in our office upstairs in our house, and I was literally sitting there mad at a change that was made that wasn't documented well, and I was like, 'There's got to be a better way to do this.'"

With Materio as a Partner

The transformation began when Kendall's wife found Materio through social media. After trying several other programs that "seemed really good when we first started using it, and then as we went through the trial period... this is even worse," they discovered something different with Materio.

"It's all in one place. We create our scope in Materio. We cost the job in Materio. The design lives in Materio. The comments from the client live in Materio, the comments from the designer live in Materio. All of the selections, the links, everything is there."

The difference was immediately apparent to both the team and clients.

"No one had a selection, a good selection system that had a review and approve process where it was easy to see what the selections were and who had approved them when... and Materio has all of that."

The QR code feature revolutionized their job sites:

"You pull it up, you click on a link, the guys... all of our trades have access to it. We have the QR codes that we put in the project. It pulls up the rendering that shows what it's supposed to look like. It shows the layout of the tile. It shows what tile with the SKU number and the link to it."

The Transformation

The impact on winning new business was immediate and dramatic.

"We've won so many jobs just showing them the program from a selection standpoint. When we walk into a house and we're talking to a client, a potential client about their project... they realize that they're not sitting there questioning. They're not sitting at work saying, 'Oh man, I hope that contractor doesn't mess this up today.'"

One particular job showcased the power of their new approach:

"We had a job recently that we were up against three different contractors... we were quite a bit higher than the other contractors, and they were like, 'We just trust your process. The fact that you use this is already telling us that you're a step above the other contractors that we looked at.'"

The operational benefits were equally transformative.

"You're not stuck chasing information. It's not like you're sitting there scrolling through 5,000 text messages to figure out what it is that was supposed to be done... They wake up, they put a comment in Materio, and then it's there for you the next day, and you're tagged in it."

For project managers coming from other companies, the difference was striking:

"I've got project managers that have come from other companies and they used big name programs... they came in a little hesitant at first because they were so comfortable with their older program, but as soon as they started getting into it and seeing how it operated, it was a game changer for them."

Success

The results have been comprehensive, affecting every aspect of their business. From a revenue perspective:

"we track all of our expenses in Materio. Now we use Materio Pay, the change orders go through Materio... it's increased our revenue by cleaning up some of the things that we tend to forget when we're really busy."

The system prevents costly oversights:

"When you have a $350 change order that shows up on a project or a client selection that they selected something over budget, and you forget to charge them for the overage... with Materio you don't have that. It's there, it's tracked."

Perhaps most importantly, the stress has fundamentally shifted.

"The headaches that we used to have... the headaches come from the unknowns of the construction and not from the process for doing the work, where a lot of it used to be in the process of doing the work."

The visibility as an owner has been transformative:

"I can get in there if a client calls that has a question, and a project manager is out. I go pull up the project. I look at the activity, I look at the scope. I look at the change orders. I look at the finances. I look at the selections... I can see everything on the project, and I don't have to go call my project manager."

When asked to describe Materio in one sentence, Kendall said:

"Materio is all encompassing both for project manager, an owner and a client for any new build or remodel project."

And if Materio were to disappear tomorrow?

"What I would miss the most is the visibility as an owner of the company... being able to see and trust the information on a project."