Meet the Pro

Emily Cline Ellstrom, Principal & Creative Director of The Cline Company, runs a full-service design-build firm in Edmonds, Washington. With a team of 8, they specialize in ground-up construction and full home renovations.

After taking over the family business from her parents, Emily is transforming the 35-year-old firm with a holistic approach to healthy home design. "If I didn't have to do anything for the rest of my life, I would be designing spaces and helping people understand why healthy home habits matter and building healthy homes makes a difference in every part of our life."

The Problem

Before Materio, Emily's team was drowning in disconnected systems across their design-build operations. While they used Studio Designer for the design side, they needed something that could handle both sides of their business. "Studio designer's very specific to interior design. But we are build," Emily explains.

More importantly, Emily wanted efficiency:

"I do not like using multiple tools. I want our team to stay in one platform and work out of that and streamline our process."

"It was Excel spreadsheets and Google Docs" filling the gaps. Frustrated by the lack of integrated solutions, Emily attempted to build a custom CRM on Monday.com, spending "thousands upon thousands upon thousands of dollars building it with consultants and paying our design team to sit in these trainings and build it, and it just never, never did what it needed to do."

The scattered approach created constant friction:

• Information chaos: "Is that on the drive? Can you email me that file? What was that selection? What spec sheet was that on?"

• Client confusion: Managing "thousands of decisions for a full home build or renovation" without a system to help clients track and approve selections

• Team inefficiency: No centralized access to project information, leading to constant interruptions and duplicated work

• Missing client interface: "It didn't have the client interface, either"

With Materio as a Partner

When Emily kept seeing Materio ads on Instagram, her brother, who was working part-time on the construction side, said, "we have to have this." They decided to abandon their expensive Monday.com system and make the switch.

The visual approach immediately resonated:

"The biggest change off the bat was the client experience of the selections tool is huge for organization... to expect clients to remember even a fraction of that is just not gonna happen."

What impressed Emily most was how Materio unified their entire workflow:

"I do not like using multiple tools. I want our team to stay in one platform and work out of that and streamline our process."

The Transformation

The results were immediate and comprehensive.

Client experience revolution:

"It also takes a huge lift off of our team that they have access all the time to go on there and see what was that light fixture we selected? Or what did that elevation look like? And the plans are right there, and you can hover over the plan and see what the fixture is right there. They can comment on it, and our team can get back to them."

Operational efficiency:

"Having all of the information in one place has been huge... It's just all in one place which has saved a ton of time as well as the ordering process. Knowing where things are and not having to ask where it is."

Design process streamlined:

"We've been able to reduce a lot of the detail on the plans because it's already captured in Materio, and we can just print the schedule or the details from there. And not have this sort of duplicative process."

Team empowerment:

"You don't want your whole team having full access to your QuickBooks always, but they do need information on orders and different things, and so just having that all linked within that item that they can just really easily reference is super helpful."

Success

Today, Materio is integral to every aspect of The Cline Company's operations. Emily's new procurement coordinator got up to speed in just "10 or 15 minutes, max" using Materio's training resources. "She's been able to just intuitively figure it out... It's very intuitive. It does not take rocket science. I mean my mom, who is 65 and hates technology, has figured it out."

The platform has become a competitive advantage:

"We use your software as part of our sales process... when we're doing proposals we have screenshots of what the whole process looks like, and we walk people through that before they're a client... And so when people are seeing like, 'Oh, wow! This is great,' like perfect sign the line."

Emily now evangelizes Materio throughout the industry:

"It is the most streamlined project management tool. And it creates this very high end experience for your clients, and cuts out communication time for you because you're empowering them with here's everything going on in your project that you have access to all the time."

When asked what she'd miss most if Materio disappeared, Emily's response was immediate:

"I'd be [CENSORED]. I don't even want that thought in my mind. Everything."