Quantum Building & Design, Frankfort, Ill.
Type of business: custom builder
Years in business: 3
Employees: 5
2006 volume: $3 million
2006 starts: 11
When home sales are slow, there are builders who wait for business to pick up, and there are those who go out and pick up some business. The Groskreutz family is firmly in the latter camp. Todd and Rebecca (pictured, far right) and Tony and Dawn Groskreutz (pictured, far left) are brothers and their wives who build custom and spec homes in Frankfort, Ill., a southern suburb of Chicago that is experiencing something of an inventory glut. “There are over 400 houses available in Frankfort, spec homes and models,” reports Tony, who says that the sales slowdown seems to have caught local builders flat-footed. “All they know is to sit in their [model] house on Saturday and Sunday and wait for people to walk through.” All veterans of careers outside of construction, the Groskreutzes took a more active approach. Rather than sit tight, they stirred up their market with a single-builder “Parade of Homes,” generating traffic and sales that defied the market doldrums.
The partners lined up six houses—three of their own spec houses and three completed custom homes—developed print, direct-mail, and Web-based ads, and invited their banker, real estate agent, subcontractors, and vendors to participate in the event. “Each home had at least three major sponsorships,” Tony says. Sponsors offered informational seminars, product demonstrations, and such services as comparative market analyses for prospective home buyers. “It was so much more than just showing them the house.” But the houses, showcasing the company’s workmanship and Rebecca’s interior design work, were the stars of the show. The partners bet that customers would like what they saw, and the bet paid off.
By the end of the event, the company had met more potential buyers than they otherwise would see in months, sold two houses on the spot, and developed leads that would ripen into more than a year’s worth of work. “I had no out-of-pocket on this, and I saw over 200 people,” Tony says. “I think our company can build 10 houses a year and do a good job, and we’ve got 14 [under contract or in negotiation]. And it’s only April.”
