Some builders work hard to meet expectations, others try to manage them. Gus Rubio’s quest is to exceed expectations. It’s the philosophy he runs his business by and, he believes, the reason for its success. “I tell my employees that the reason we always have work, in good times and bad, is that we exceed expectations.”
Rubio doesn’t simply want to exceed his clients’ expectations of their new house. He also wants to exceed their expectations of the home building experience. Most of Gabriel Builders’ clients are second-home buyers and retirees moving to golf communities in the lake resorts of northwest South Carolina. “The area is filled with world-class amenities,” Rubio says, “but my clients don’t know anybody here and don’t know where to go.” So the builder and his wife and partner, Belinda (also shown), roll out the kind of Southern hospitality that makes clients on a site visit feel at home in the community and with their builder. The Rubios routinely take visiting clients out to dinner at popular restaurants patronized by people in the clients’ new neighborhood. The evening out introduces the clients to the local scene and often lets the Rubios introduce them to some of their future neighbors. “It also makes the client feel more comfortable with us,” he says. “Everything we do is on a cost-plus basis, so they really have to have a lot of trust. The better they know us, the better they feel.”
Rubio intentionally limits the number of projects in production at any one time so that he can provide a high degree of personal attention to each client and house. Next year, he expects to close four or five houses costing between $1.5 million and $3 million but says he could easily do three times that many if it weren’t for his commitment to providing the personal touch. “We could make more profit by building more houses,” he says, “but then we wouldn’t exceed expectations.”
Gabriel Builders, Greer, S.C.
www.gabrielbuilders.com
Type of business: custom builder
Years in business: 21
Employees: 7
2004 volume: $3 million
2004 starts: 4
