5 Foundational Cornerstones of a Successful Custom Building Business

Taking Care of Business is a bi-monthly video series in which our Host Duane Johns, a remodeler, builder, developer, coach, and consultant—not to mention the co-host of the popular Builder Nuggets podcast—sits down with industry experts to get deep into some of custom building’s most top-of-mind topics. In its inaugural episode, Johns sits down with Scott Beebe, founder and head coach of My Business On Purpose, to talk about the fundamentals of building a strong custom building business.

“What I’ve found is (builders) don’t really fully identify that ‘why?’ in those early stages of building their business, where it’s just more of a, ‘Hey, I’ve just got to get stuff done’ … and the why just sort of gets lost,” says Johns, bringing up one of the pitfalls common to custom building. He asks Beebe, “What are some of those things in those very early days that people need to be thinking about?”

My Business On Purpose is a consultancy unique in that the majority of its clients are builders, so Beebe has a depth of experience working with struggling businesses that want to be better as well as good businesses that want to be great. As he explains in the below segment, an exercise he likes to run his builder clients through is business valuations, where they can gauge the strength of their current operation.

“Before we ever get to the numbers—the EBITAs, the multiples, things that determine business value—what we’re going back to is something that we taught them seven, eight, nine years ago, and that was the construction of the business,” Beebe explains. “The very first slide we teach on the construction of the business is what we call ‘The Five Foundational Cornerstones.’”

The Five Foundational Cornerstones, according to Beebe, are the fundamental elements upon which any successful business is built. They are as follows:

1. An articulated vision story — Beebe describes this as “a detailed snapshot of the future of your business.”  
2. Mission statement — “Most people’s mission sounds so ethereal—’We want to be the world’s best … blah, blah, blah,’” Beebe says. “And it doesn’t mean anything.” Builders need a mission that means something.  
3. Unique core values — These aren’t the basic values, Beebe explains. “These aren’t integrity, respect, excellence,” he says. “Those are standard core values. If you don’t have those, we just shouldn’t be talking.”  
4. Team meetings — As simplistic a priority as meetings may seem, Beebe says that it’s still something businesses need to actively make time for. And they need to have a thought out approach.  
5. A written and followed hiring and onboarding process — Like “team meetings,” Beebe says this is another cornerstone that tends to catch people off guard. “Yes, those are foundational,” Beebe explains. “Because if you do those two things wrong, the house will implode over time.”

Check out the below video for a deeper dive into Beebe’s Foundational Cornerstones.