VB Homes purchased this Virginia Beach home with an eye toward displaying its remodeling skills. The transition from simple ranch to beautiful waterfront retreat provided a powerful marketing tool by showing other homeowners what they could accomplish.

With many remodeling jobs coming through the pipeline, who's in control, and how do they manage the backlog?

The best thing about focusing on culture is that you get to decide what type of remodeling company you develop and/or work for.

Information about adding good employees; building customer loyalty; and keeping the lines of communication open.

There is an old saying, "numbers don't lie." This is true, but they can also be very confusing when it comes to your remodeling business' profit and loss statement. Why is that? Most financial programs are set up to accommodate IRS standards. What you and I need is a program that helps us run a more effective and efficient business — a business that pays us well and produces a double-digi...

This month's cover story makes me feel old. It's one thing to look in the mirror and see the wrinkles creeping across your face like cracks in an old plaster ceiling. It's another matter to discover that American business thought leaders are beginning to pay less and less attention to my generation — baby boomers — in favor of a younger, wealthier one — Generation X.

Designing and building outdoor living areas for your clients triggers a quandary: What style should it be? The easy answer is to slap a wood or composite deck onto the back of the house. But your clients are likely to be more delighted with an outdoor living area that takes its design cues from the house itself.

Once you've been in the business for a while, a lot of your clients can be referrals. Does your marketing plan change to attract those referrals? Tom: Today's subject is "Marketing for Referrals." Jeff, in your terms, how would you define marketing in and of itself? Jeff: I would consider marketing as what our image is in our community.

I have been in business for 19 years, and I will tell you hiring is by far the hardest yet most important aspect of my job as president of my company. I have tried more approaches to hiring than I ever care to admit. In these past 19 years, I have found a few helpful areas to focus on that I would like to share: