Blog · Content Craftsmen llc

Content Craftsmen Clients Dominate 2020 CotY Awards

November 11, 2020 by Tom Sweeney

One of the most rewarding services Content Craftsmen provides is to craft NARI Contractor of the Year (CotY) Award entries for Twin Cities remodelers. Although merely the storytellers, we are grateful for the opportunity to support many of Minnesota’s top general contractors.

NARI held its annual CotY Awards Gala virtually last night. All eight of the entries Content Craftsmen prepared won. Our clients also won NARI Member of the Year, Best of Show and the Newcomer Award.

Best of Show – Mom’s Design Build (perfect score)

Newcomer Award – Frontier Custom Builders

Member of the Year – Tricia Wiitanen, Refined Homes

Residential Exterior $50,000 to $100,000

Hoffman Weber Construction SILVER

Residential Exterior Over $200,000

Mom’s Design Build GOLD

Landscape Design/Outdoor Living Under $100,000

Mom’s Design Build GOLD

Landscape Design/Outdoor Living $100,000 to $250,000

Mom’s Design Build GOLD

Landscape Design/Outdoor Living Over $250,000

Mom’s Design Build GOLD – Best of Show

Mom’s Design Build SILVER

Residential Detached Structure

Knight Construction Design, Inc. SILVER

Residential Interior $250,001 to $500,000

Knight Construction Design, Inc. GOLD

Residential Interior Over $500,000

Frontier Custom Builders GOLD

Residential Bath $75,001 to $100,000

Knight Construction Design, Inc. GOLD

Residential Kitchen Over $150,000

Mom’s Design Build SILVER

Why our clients win awards

Creating winning award entries starts with excellent projects. Our entries win, in part, because we will not accept an award entry assignment unless we are confident the project will prevail. The next step is to enter the project in the best category. Creating a CotY award involves reviewing documents and images, interviewing designers, project managers and homeowners, gathering signature documents, designing lengthy PowerPoints and uploading numerous files to the CotY portal.

Marketing CotY Awards is as important as winning them. We handle that too. It starts with uploading an article and the CotY Award logo to the client’s website. Then we share the good news via email marketing, social media, media relations and online profiles.

Here to help

Presenting a company as an award-winning remodeler enhances client consideration. If your remodeling company plans to enter the CotY Awards, Master Design Awards, ROMA Awards, Remodeling Design Awards or needs help marketing a win, please contact Content Craftsmen today.

Content Craftsmen continues to support Minnesota contractors. We expanded our marketing content and web development service area to Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New York this year with offices in West Hartford, CT.

NARI MN names Content Craftsmen’s Tom Sweeney 2019 Member of the Year

November 12, 2019 by Tom Sweeney

Tom Sweeney NARI Member of the Year — Content Craftsmen President Tom Sweeney, left, named 2019 NARI MN Member of the Year, seen here with NARI MN President Guy Selinske

Minneapolis, MN, Nov. 12, 2019 — Content Craftsmen LLC founder Tom Sweeney was named 2019 Member of the Year by the Minnesota Chapter of the National Association of the Remodeling Industry (NARI). He was recognized at the industry association’s annual Contractor of the Year (CotY) Awards dinner held at ARIA Minneapolis and attended by nearly 340 members and guests.

The group commended Sweeney for supporting member participation in NARI programs, recruiting new members and volunteering to consult on association marketing.

Since joining NARI five years ago, Content Craftsmen has become the leading marketing agency for creating successful CotY Awards entries for Minnesota remodelers. Sweeney produced nine winning CotY entries this year and the winning Associate Contractor of the Year (A-CotY) entry. Content Craftsmen also received six Pillar Awards of its own for supporting winning CotY entries.

“NARI membership is a must for any Minnesota remodeling company, building supply company or building products manufacturer. The opportunities for recognition, networking, event sponsorship and giving back are unsurpassed,” Sweeney said.

Sweeney worked on winning CotY entries for Hansen Hometech, Modern Design, Mom’s Design Build, Murphy Bros. Design Build Remodel, Hoffman Weber Construction, and Wise Design & Remodel. He also entered projects for APEX Construction Management, J Carsten Remodeling and JW Williams Construction.

“Producing CotY entries is the closest thing I do to when I served as a national home improvement magazine editor and publisher,” Sweeney said. “It’s about storytelling in words, photos and illustrations. Creating a CotY entry is a lot like crafting a magazine cover story.”

Sweeney interviews homeowners, project managers and designers, directs photo shoots, takes some of his own photos, writes the copy and creates PowerPoint presentations that can be up to 25-pages.

Mom’s Design Build Wins Another National CotY Award

April 15, 2019 by Tom Sweeney

Content Craftsmen client, Mom’s Design Build, once again won a national Contractor of the Year (CotY) Award from the National Association of the Remodeling Industry. The 2019 honor was in the Residential Landscape/Outdoor Living under $60,000 category. It featured a Wayzata project by Senior Designer Heather Sweeney. She accepted the award Friday evening at the Association’s annual Evening of Excellence event in San Diego, California.

This home actually is a main house and carriage house that were joined along the bend of a road near the Wayzata Yacht Club. The owners needed a landscape that would shield them from headlights, reclaim part of the front yard for themselves, and bring clarity to the main entrance. Creating the charming country landscape the owners desired required removing an ailing stand of cedars and planting a garden in the now sunny front yard. Features include a classic arbor and gates, clay paver and bluestone paths, and an abundance of easy care flowers and shrubs. The owner says it is her peaceful, tranquil place.

Online Reputation Management for Minnesota Remodelers

April 13, 2019 by Tom Sweeney

If you operate a remodeling business, reputation management should be a big deal. And it’s not just about building nice projects and collecting positive online reviews. Internet savvy prospects will scrutinize you and your business from multiple angles before they consider hiring you.

Granted, some things that shape your company’s image are largely outside of your control. For instance, if you don’t respond to an Angie’s List inquiry fast enough, the unhappy homeowner might flame you online. Ask nicely and Angie’s will remove F grades for price and quality if the person didn’t actually hire you. But they won’t take down the other F grades that drag down your star scores.

Remodelers can build images

Make it easy for every happy client to post at least one positive review so the five-star favorables outweigh the occasional, almost unavoidable shamers. That’s a key service Content Craftsmen provides its clients.

Also build your business appeal by being careful not to unnecessarily sabotage your professional image in your personal life. One can argue that people should only care about how a person does business, but again it’s totally outside of your control how people form their opinions and decide where to spend their money.

Assume that some people will Google your name and your company name and your key management team (try it yourself). Whether they spot something they don’t like on your official website or a personal Facebook page or Twitter feed makes little difference.

Free Speech Comes with a Price

As a career journalist, I’m all for free speech and being true to one’s beliefs. Just understand that about half the people who buy remodeling services might differ with your most passionate positions. That goes for views on political parties, the courts, Congress, the President, Russia, the environment, the wall, immigration, religion, foreign policy, equal rights and social justice. The worst part is that you will never know how much business you miss. You won’t get calls from some on the other side or have any idea what they share with family and friends.

I’m not suggesting people will hire incompetent remodelers just because they share their views. But if it is close, they may favor the person who is most like them on politics, religion, ethnicity, hobbies, age and personality.

3 Tactics to Guard your Reputation

If you are okay with selling only to people who think and act like you, go ahead and post whatever you want online and make everything public. Then accept the positive and negative consequences. However, if your business growth strategy is built on appealing to a broader audience, you have three options:

Make your social media posts private so only approved contacts see them, not strangers and prospective clients.
Remove any references to your company on your personal profiles to create some professional separation.
Remove polarizing posts from your personal social media platforms and avoid sharing those views in business settings.

Content Craftsmen’s goal is to help clients avoid pitfalls, grow their businesses and operate efficiently so they can enjoy life. The simplest advice is to keep it positive. And on that note, meet our first grandchild, Liam. The only negative is that he lives 1,300 miles away. Can’t wait to see him next month. He’ll be eight months.

Content Craftsmen Qualifies Leads for Minnesota Remodelers

March 1, 2019 by Tom Sweeney

Although pursuing and qualifying leads is an essential part of every remodeling business, most companies are at a disadvantage because they know little to nothing about prospects before they respond. Consumers learn about the contractors via their websites and online reviews, but many contractors simply pick up the phone and dial for dollars when an inquiry arrives.

Content Craftsmen helps its remodeler clients level the field by conducting same day online research as leads arrive. This enables the contractors or their sales people to prioritize the best leads for quick response and to connect with prospects on a more personal level right away.

We assemble background on both the properties and the homeowners. Our summary reports usually include home value, detailed descriptions, photos, and the owners’ occupations, education and personal interests. We also speak with the most desirable prospects to gather specifics about their budgets, goals and competititve bidding plans.

Inquiries from platforms like Houzz and Angie’s List and the contactors’ own website contact forms often are incomplete. They may not even include an address. By efficiently tapping multiple online sources, we usually can give our clients a complete picture of each remodeling opportunity.

The Content Craftsmen Difference

Imagine that Sally O’Hara contacts a contactor on Houzz to inquire about kitchen remodeling. Meanwhile, Harry Peterson find the contractor on Google and reaches out through the website contact form. After some quick research, Content Craftsmen determines that Sally is married to Timothy O’Hara. Their home is worth $800,000. She’s a CPA and he’s a doctor. They have a son who plays hockey and a daughter who competes in Irish stepdancing competitions. They want to gut and enlarge their west metro kitchen. Meanwhile, Harry is a young do-it-yourselfer who lives in a hard to access $160,000 downtown condo. His idea of kitchen remodeling is to replace the countertop and sink and paint the old oak cabinets. Armed with this information, the contractor is equipped to respond efficiently and say all the right things to make a good first impression.

Some contractors are satisfied with our Content Craftmen’s G2 background report based exclusively on online research. Others prefer our premium G3 report that includes a phone interview to confirm and expand on the online findings. The G3 report often includes names of other contractors who are competing for the same project. Depending on our access, Content Craftsmen will submit the background reports by email or upload them directly to the the contractors’ CRM platforms.

We take the long view

Researching and pre-qualifying leads for busy remodelers may seem like a stretch from the storytelling Content Craftmen generates when projects are done. In fact, we like to be first in and last out.

We initiate and steer the remodeling relationship at the front end and follow the project through design and construction so we are poised to market the job and obtain positive online reviews and video testimonials at the end. Qualifying leads for remodeling contractors also helps Content Craftsmen identify projects early that will be strong candidates for awards competitions so we don’t miss taking before and in-process photos along the way.

Your time is valuable. Call me to learn how Content Craftsmen can help you prequalify, prioritize and convert more leads.