recession proof?

Here we are more than a year after the economy tanked and new home construction and building in general suffered a serious downturn. Strangely, here in Ithaca, Creative Constructions has enjoyed our busiest, most succesful period to date. For this I am grateful, but also somewhat surprised.

Frequently folks will ask "how's business lately...?"  When I tell them business is GREAT, I get a look of disbelief. As if to say "....did I hear you right, how is that possible...?" I have been wondering the same thing myself lately.

How it is that our residential home construction business has remained a growing operation even as most construction related businesses are experiencing unprecedented slow times?

Although it is a cliche, I think it is because we are, well, different in comparison to the typical home builder. The following is a list of what I think sets us, Creative Constructions LLC apart.

1. We are small enough (intentionaly so) to have our own hands on all our projects.
2. We treat our clients like partners not adversaries.
3. We encourage our clients to act as their own contractor, which allows them to have much greater control over their entire project throughout. This increases the chances that the client can achieve just what they are after, in terms of the balance between product and cost.

4. We are in it as much or more for positive vibes and happy customer feeback as we are for the living we make at it.

5. We three partners are all college graduates with degrees in Engineering -Rod, Fine Arts- Kerrie, and Education -Rob, as well as seasoned builders with years of practical experience in diverse settings.

6. We try to think flexibly and to keep an open mind for our customers.
7. We are committed to designing and building affordable, environmentally conscious structures, with a bent toward energy efficiency, smaller footprints, and well designed living spaces.
8. We embrace the use of the internet for research and client communicaton, as well as for sharing info on our website about who we are and what we do.

9. We encourage our clients to get involved in their projects at whatever level they are comfortable- be it on site with tools, on the phone with suppliers, shopping for materials, or just enjoying the finished product.
10. We think we're fun to work with! We definitely do good work!  And we have reasonable rates!

In this difficult economic time, we feel that these differences in how we run our business and how we perform our work have set us apart in this Ithaca home building market.  We appreciate all this work we have been able to do.  And like my dad would say, we must be doing something right.