Anyone can begin a remodel. The industry’s real dividing line shows up somewhere around week six.
It Is Very Difficult To Finish It
Rick Haggerty said it plainly on Unscripted Home Improvement:
“It’s really easy to start a job. It’s very difficult to finish it within the expectations, the timeframe, and the budget that the customer wants it done in.”
— Rick Haggerty, 615 Design Group
Note that he did not say finishing is hard. He said finishing inside all three constraints at once is hard, which is a different and more honest claim.
Timeframe, Budget And Expectation Together
Any two of the three are manageable. On time and on budget, with the scope quietly reduced. On time and to expectation, with the budget moving. On budget and to expectation, with the date moving. It is the third one that costs a builder sleep.
Haggerty’s advice to homeowners is to interrogate exactly this before signing: “I would encourage people to check references, look at other work. and not necessarily get sucked into a cheap price.”
He is specific about method too — “check references, to read Google reviews, to look at pictures of existing work and work that they’ve done. and even call someone and say, talk to me about how these people work.”
Really In The People Development Business
The most interesting thing Haggerty said had nothing to do with construction:
“even though I’m in this construction segment, I’m really in the people development business.”
— Rick Haggerty
His follow-on explains why that matters to a homeowner: “A players really cannot stand you watching you tolerate D players.” The crew that shows up at your house is the output of whether the company holds a standard internally. You cannot inspect that directly, which is exactly why he pushes references so hard.
He also makes a point that sounds harsh and is not: he says they are “very choosy on our customers” because “certain customers fit us” better than others, and rejects the Sam Walton line outright — “the customer is always right, couldn’t be more wrong.” A builder willing to say no to the wrong job is a builder more likely to finish yours.
Questions To Ask Before You Sign
Practitioner guidance, built on Haggerty’s advice rather than dictated by him. Ask: what is the written completion criterion, in words, not a date? How are change orders priced and approved — before or after the work? Who is on site daily, and are they employees or subcontractors? What happened on the last job that ran long, and why? And may I call that customer?
The last question is the one that separates the answers.
How We Handle A Job That Slips
Jobs slip. Materials arrive late, inspections queue, and what is behind the wall is not always what the drawings said. What we commit to is telling you as soon as we know rather than as late as possible, giving you the revised sequence in writing, and separating clearly what moved the date from what moves the price — because they are not the same thing and conflating them is where trust goes.
More in our full conversation with Rick and why we treat every project like it matters.
Questions about a project? Get in touch.