Certified Contractors Network

Capizzi Home Improvement
This nomination is truly for all those who work and perform at Capizzi Home Improvement. 2010 being our 35th year in business we have been through a few recessions and a few boom times. During this business cycle, we find ourselves and the staff at Capizzi Home Improvement who work and run our sales, production and administration departments have really stepped up to do what’s needed to keep our company a thriving business on Cape Cod. The strength and stability of any business to sustain its position in the community it serves, especially through all the economic cycles, takes a strong culture of capable and hard working people who do what it takes as a team to get the job done. The staff at Capizzi Home Improvement are that team. As a business owner you could not have a more dedicated group of professionals to lead a company through any challenge. The staff at Capizzi Home Improvement have proven themselves worthy of this most prestigious award CCN Company of the year.

Crown Roofing & Drainage Residential Division Ltd.
We have consistently held our people to a high standard and guarantee the quality of our product with a ten year warranty. This means our work will stand the test of time and we back this up with 24 hour emergency service.

Energy Swing Windows
I would like to nominate Energy Swing Windows as CCN’s Company of the Year.

Energy Swing has come a long way in its ten year plus history. Much of this progress is due to our association with CCN and the networking we have been able to do with all of the members we have interacted with over those years. We have grown and learned from these experiences. We hope that during that time we have also been able to impart to others some of the lessons we have learned during this adventure.

We have made advancements in numerous areas. We started out as a one product line company. But it was an ambitious birth because we simultaneously started both a manufacturing company and a home improvement company. Our initial business plan called for us to market, sell, manufacture, install and guarantee a unique line of custom made replacement windows. These patented windows were designed around the concept of the sash swing-in, rather than tilting-in, for easy hands free cleaning. Since we did everything with our own employees, we were able to offer sole source responsibility to our customers. Windows remain Energy Swing’s core business and we are dedicated to providing sole source value to our clients.

Over the years, Energy Swing has grown because of its commitment to doing the right thing for its customers.  Because of the value we provide, our customers asked us to expand our offerings to other products. We have grown by adding entry doors, siding and now roofing because our clients asked us to offer these services. We now are able to handle just about any area on the exterior of our client’s home.

Adding new things is definitely a challenge for an organization. CCN members have played a major role in helping us respond to these challenges. Our ability to interact and question experts in these product areas helped shorten our learning curve and minimize costly mistakes. We still took our share of lumps, but they were a lot smaller than they would have been if we didn’t have CCN to help us along the way.

Over the years, Energy Swing has benefited from the integration of many CCN processes. One of the most significant has been bi-weekly TQM meetings. Every other Wednesday, everyone in the company gets together to review every job we worked on over the last two weeks. We discussed what happened, what went right, what went wrong and, more importantly, what changes we need to make in our processes to prevent that issue from happening in the future. This single event done on a consistent basis has enabled us to offer ever increasing value to our clients.

We also have institutionalized weekly Friday morning Client Review and Planning meetings between sales, administration, manufacturing and installation to review all of the jobs on the schedule for the next two weeks, which basically means that every job is double reviewed in advance. This meeting has helped us to assure that things are in place to deliver on our commitments to our customers. It also has proven to be a great cross-training tool, enlightening and educating everyone about the issues faced by people in other parts of the company.

The success of TQM and these weekly planning meetings has brought Energy Swing to the attention of regional business organizations and universities such as Duquesne University and the University of Pittsburgh who have used Energy Swing as an example in their entrepreneurship and business programs. The CCN creed of “do the right thing” has allowed Energy Swing to win the Western Pennsylvania Better Business Bureau Torch Award for Business Ethics in its dealing with its suppliers, employees and customers.

However, a business is not a thing; a business is a living, breathing entity that exists to serve its customers. At night and over the weekend everything is in place; the equipment, the trucks, and the materials we use to make our products, but the business is not there. It’s the people who make Energy Swing come alive.  The quality of a business is really determined by the quality of its people. Business is all about relationships; the relationship between its employees and its clients, between its clients and the company and between the company and its employees. Over the years, the quality of Energy Swing’s organization has grown to the point where we now have a strong core group of people who truly care about the clients, the company and each other. The environment at Energy Swing fosters communication and openness where everyone strives to understand “the reason behind the work”. Energy Swing is lucky enough to have a great group of people who are dedicated to delivering value to each other and to the customers.

Trying to make a go of a small business in today’s world is indeed trying. Everyday seems to bring more changes and a new set of challenges. You can’t live with the status quo. You’ve got to keep asking yourself, “ how can we make this company stronger” and constantly challenge yourself to be better tomorrow than today. The only thing constant is change. In trying to respond to changes, we need to be fast implementers. Today, more than ever, implement is critical to the success of a business – nothing changes without implementation. All the good ideas don’t change a thing unless they get implemented. At Energy Swing, we work hard at implementation. CCN has played a major role in helping Energy Swing meet these challenges and implement change.

If there is one statistic that everyone at Energy Swing is exceptionally proud of, it’s the constant feedback we get from our clients on our Customer Satisfaction Surveys. For the last eight years, we have asked our clients this value question. “Now that the job is all done and you see the end result for the money that you invested, do you feel that you got less value than you paid for, equal value for what you spent or greater value for your dollar?” Since we started asking that question, more than 70% of our clients say they got greater value than they paid for, and the balance said equal value. No one has ever said that they got less. That’s why more than 76% of Energy Swing’s business comes from referrals and repeat clients. Everyone at Energy Swing is dedicated to delivering value to its clients.

Over the last few years, Energy Swing has won many company and individual awards for the win/win/win culture we have tried to build. However, nothing would make us prouder than being recognized as CCN Company of the Year by the CCN members who have helped contribute to making Energy Swing the company it is today.

Rain Gutter Specialties
Grown in a down economy

Rogers Roofing
January of 2010 was by far the most challenging time of my business career. We had just come off a year where we had our greatest year in terms of revenue but we made no profit. In fact we actually lost money. Snow was piling up, we had very little work and the attitude around our office was are we going to make it through the winter? There were many hard decisions and sacrifices that had to be made. Our team was greatly affected not only financially but personally. We let go of 8 employees that we considered B players. Our subcontractors were now working under our rules of payment not theirs.
By the Spring you could see a greater appreciation for our company by all of its employees especially by me.  Going into summer we had everything lined up to have a kick ass year and boy did we ever!
Our sales team surpassed their sales goals for 5 straight months. We have shown profitability 8 of 10 months. And our profits are up an amazing 148% from last year at this time.”

The Roofing Store, LLC
As a company with only ten employees, The Roofing Store is still a force to be reckoned with.  With 100% customer satisfaction as our goal, one can imagine just how difficult that is to achieve.  The Roofing Store aggressively provides its customers with customer service that is second to none.  A recent email from one of our customers explains it all.  Our customer:  “I thought I would write to tell you how much we appreciate the work your men did in installing a new roof on our house.  We realize it was not an easy building to work on and the hot weather didn’t help either.  We have received many comments on how nice it looks.  I checked our attic during the downpour we had this weekend and couldn’t find any leakage, not that I expected to find any but I just wanted to make sure.  While yours was not the lowest bid, Steve’s presentation pointed out some things that the others didn’t cover.  That made our decision easier. We would gladly recommend your company.”

Roof Max
In CCN there are a lot of very, very good companies. One of these companies, Roofmax, has become a GREAT COMPANY through our belief in the CCN process! We have participated in training opportunities that CCN has made available and attended every CCN conference for the past 5 years. Roofmax trains every key employee through CCN. In 2010 alone we have had two people attend blue collar boot camp, two people attend sales training, two owners attend the financial mastermind, and three people at the business planning boot camp.  As a result, and without any help from natural disasters or storms, Roofmax excelled and exceeded our annual goals! 2010 results eclipsed 2009 sales by a 20% increase.
Roofmax is firm in our stance for superior customer service and quality craftsmanship. This is why Roofmax has earned the prestigious Diamond Certified award for the past 5 years. Our team of employee’s attends local and national training in all aspects of our business to provide our customers with a pleasant construction experience. One customer states, “There was never a doubt from our first meeting that Roofmax was the right company. From your depth of your presentation to my belief in your personal standards, I knew I would get the roof I need and deserve.”

Maggio Roofing Co.