CEO
Integro Builders
Chicago and Western Michigan
2021 Revenue: $1.9 million
I became a contractor because of a bad contractor. The reason bad contractors exist is that clients don’t know better. Fundamentally for us, our brand has always been to improve the industry. The first thing I do is give project prices on my website, I don’t treat it like a secret. A lot of people don’t know what construction costs, but putting it on my site facilitates what competitive pricing is. I always tell clients to hire who they like because everyone will get to my number—the question is how and when. We’re never the low bid in the beginning, but we are by the end.
On responding to challenges: All of our projects lined up in 2020 were canceled or delayed. In the meantime, I still had a staff to support. Survival is a powerful tool, and the worst thing in my experience is to stop and freeze; you have to keep moving. Everyone was stuck in their homes, but people were buying up real estate in Michigan. And for years, Chicago architects told me they had these clients building second homes in Michigan, and there were only a handful of custom builders. So I took a deep breath and said, “Let’s go to Michigan.”
Business reading:
Marie Clare
