For Mark Jenkins – co-owner of Genesis Home Improvement, LLC with his wife, Kim – his career started early.

“My dad owned a roofing company, and when we turned 12, we worked every summer,” Mark related. “And I kind of stayed into it. I worked for others, and it just got time to do my own thing.”

So he and Kim opened the company in April. Business has been good.

“We do garages, additions, basement remodels, garage doors,” he said. “Right now, I’m swamped with decks. Everybody wants to be out on their decks. And we do termite damage work.”

That kind of work can be perplexing.

“One recent job, the termites had eaten some of the drywall,” Mark said. “The customer had a hole in the siding about the size of a straw, and it was enough to keep letting water come in. You couldn’t see it from the outside, and I didn’t find it until I pulled the drywall off.”

For homeowners concerned about termites, Jenkins has a warning.

“The worse thing is where people get mulch from the landfills – old Christmas trees and pallets that they’ve put through a chipper,” he stated. “That’s the worst mulch to put near your house because it isn’t treated. As soon as that gets wet, that draws termites right to it, and if you have it in your flower beds, you’re just asking for them to come up and eat your house apart.”

 

Careful service

Jenkins said that he has gotten a lot of business by concentrating on customer service from the beginning.

“I don’t sell something to somebody that I don’t use myself,” he said. “It’s not a money factor for me. I enjoy working with people, and if I can save them money, I’ll do it. I don’t go out and sell them something that they don’t need.”

“We believe in being honest with people, standing behind what you say you’re going to do,” added Kim Jenkins.

How can he save homeowners money?

“I do a lot of jobs where people have helmet guards on their gutters, and I use the cheap Home Depot stuff because a lot of times in the winter, if ice dams up in the gutter, it will start backing up under the shingles, and first thing you do is go with a claw hammer and dig a trench, and there goes your $2,000 Helmet Guard,” he explained. “If you’ve got the stuff from Home Depot, and it works just as well, then you can go back and buy some more, and you might have lost $400.”

He said that he is prepared to give an estimate for any project.

“No matter how small the job is, I’ll look at it.”

He gave a recent example.

“One guy had water damage in the amount of $30,000. The insurance company was going to give them $20,000. I met the adjuster on the job, showed what the damage really was, and he got the additional $10,000. Then he gave me more work … about $40,000 more on top of the insurance. And now I’m out there, and I’m going to be doing $50,000 more work on his deck.”

Jenkins said that his company handles almost every aspect of the home repair business.

“Roofs, siding, gutters, windows, drywall, hardwood floors, bathroom remodels, decks … pretty much everything,” he explained. “You can’t just specialize in just one thing anymore. To stay busy you’ve got to be able to do a lot of different things.”

If his business is hired to do a project, he is the point man.

“Mark manages the entire project,” Kim said. “If you’re having a lot done, you have one point of contact. You’re not dealing with a lot of different individuals, which can get frustrating.”

He is willing to travel pretty far afield to do a project, but Mark said that there’s no place like home.

“I’m certified to pull permits on everything, even commercial projects,” he said. “I love to stay in this area, but I’ve been to Berryville, I’ve been to Alexandria and Fairfax, Culpeper, Fredericksburg, but I love the Warrenton jobs. I can be there in 20 minutes.”

 

Genesis Home Improvement, LLC can be reached at www.genesishomeva.com. The phone number is (540) 497-1178.

By George Rowand

George Rowand is a member of the board of directors of the Greater Warrenton Chamber of Commerce. This article is presented courtesy of the GWCC.

Michelle Coe thinks that small to mid-sized businesses often struggle to create an identity in the marketplace.

“For a lot of people, their business cards might look one way, their brochures might look another way, and their web design may look totally unrelated or their social media could look totally unrelated,” Coe said.

Coe’s business, Blue Sky Phoenix, is designed to make the lives of small entrepreneurs easier by making their marketing less stressful.

“What I specialize in is doing brand development work and graphic design for small to mid-sized businesses,” she stated. “I really love getting in with people who are ready to make that shift from just throwing something out there on the web to making something that is more cohesive as a brand … something that is more consistent.”

 

Blue skies

Coe has a varied background.

“My degree is in graphic design, and I’ve done many things over my adult period,” she said. “I was a life insurance agent for nine years, I was a teacher in a private school for nine years, and then I became a development assistant for two years.”

Coe’s move to Virginia is reflected in the name of her business.

“I moved here three years ago, and totally revamped everything in my life,” she explained. “One of the reasons I moved here is the abundance of blue skies. I was totally taken with the Virginia skies. I was in western New York, which tended to be cloudy and grayer, and the rains are much different there. When they come in, they stay for days, whereas here, you get a storm, it moves through, and it moves on generally. And this area of Virginia is very similar to the Finger Lakes in that it has rolling hills and wine country and horse country.”

Coe had been working for a development agency for a mid-sized non-profit organization when she decided to step out on her own, move south and change her life.

“The move here has been hugely transformational for me in a whole lot of ways,” she said. “I needed to get a fresh perspective, and moving here has helped me do that. It has brought me more joy in my life. It’s the best thing I could have done for myself.”

 

See the vision

Coe said that she really enjoys working with clients to help them grow their businesses.

“I work with them to figure out who their client is, who they’re trying to cater to, and what the right look and feel would be to cater to that client,” she explained. “Then we work to bring all those things into harmony … their print media, their web, their social media so that when you’re looking at their brochure or their web site or their Facebook page, you’re going to get a common theme. Nothing’s going to be exactly alike, but it’s going to have a nice cohesive look. My design tends to lean towards the more polished, professional look. Some designers get really edgy, and they’re doing what is the latest fad is, and I can design that way, but I prefer to go for the professional look.

“Branding is number one with me,” she continued. “My website design is responsive, which means that they play well on computers or mobile devices. You can read them on your phone.”

Coe said that she has clients all over the country but that she now feels ready to expand her local business.

“I’ve been here a few years, and I feel like I have an understanding of the people here, and I feel I’m ready to step out and say, ‘Hey, I’m here!’”

One of her main tasks is to listen to her clients and together to figure out their needs.

“Working with my clients, I get to pick out those things that makes them extra-special and point them out and say, ‘This is your differentiator, this is what makes you special. This is what separates you from the 500 other people who have their shingle out.’”

Then they go with that.

“I want to know their business, what their vision is for their business because that makes me a better designer,” she stated. “I get an idea about what they’re all about and what their vision is, what’s special about each business and then build a brand. I get a lot of joy from that. I’ve been able to work with a lot of businesses that are just getting started, and to be able to help them become successful is hugely satisfying to me.”

The Blue Sky Phoenix website is blueskyphoenix.com. Michelle Coe can be reached at info@blueskyphoenix.com. The phone number is (540) 422-0916.

 

By George Rowand

George Rowand is a member of the board of directors of the Greater Warrenton Chamber of Commerce. This article is courtesy of the GWCC.