G.W. Mitchell Construction is a San Antonio-based commercial general contractor that has a decidedly new school mindset about their approach to construction despite being in business for over a century.

For Barrett Myers, the Director of Business Development at G.W. Mitchell, his job is far more than simply “sales.” It’s about building a solid foundation of efficient business processes so that G.W. Mitchell lasts another century and beyond. For a builder that touts transparency, trust, and communication on par with its quality of workmanship, Myers aspires to personally embody G.W. Mitchell’s pledge that their “most important project is [their] client’s.”

New business will always be important. But their emphasis on satisfying current clients and going above-and-beyond for them to solidify that continued relationship is what separates G.W. Mitchell Construction from other GCs in their market and the most fundamental strategy for longevity.

In keeping with putting their client relationships above all else, G.W. Mitchell partnered with Buildr.

Repeatable processes and repeat customers

One major initiative for Myers was to run all G.W. Mitchell’s business development processes through a CRM. Leveraging CRM technology is ubiquitous in every other industry; 91% of organizations with more than 11 employees use a CRM according to estimates. In construction, CRM is still a novel-enough concept that it would give G.W. Mitchell a leg up on their competition aside from securing and sustaining repeat business in a scalable fashion.

Myers’ criteria for adopting a CRM was simple:

1. Construction-specific,
2. Uncluttered user interface, and
3. Intuitive enough that anyone on the team present and future could get up to speed quickly, no matter their technical skill level or prior knowledge of CRM.

The repeatable process inherent to any client relationship management system strengthens a company's ability to better balance their many ongoing relationships.

“Construction-specific,” was the key phrase for Myers in his search because it meant more automatic forecasting capabilities as well as out-of-the box usability in place of lengthy configuration and implementation headaches that tend to arise for horizontal “one-size-fits-all” CRM solutions. For Myers, a CRM with pipeline forecasting meant less reliance on the human-error-vulnerable formulas his department had been employing for business development up to this point.

“We’re always on the go, always in the field, and it’s common for tiny human errors to throw off our strict Excel formulas,” said Myers. “You’d have to spend a ton of time trying to go back to find and fix errors that were inevitable. In our world, any amount of time doing that is already too much.”

"Construction-specific," and time-to-implement

Myers and his team initially opted for another construction CRM as their platform of choice. However, they soon grew impatient with a lengthy implementation process and a user-friendliness that was anything but.

For G.W. Mitchell Construction, switching their CRM to Buildr was a no-brainer. Buildr’s data import ability was built so that new users can get up and running as quickly as possible, whether those users happen to be switching from another CRM or spreadsheets.

“Buildr was already useful in group meetings from the jump, unlike [the other CRM] which had a five or six month lag in data feeding and full implementation,” said Myers, commenting on Buildr’s ability to get G.W. Mitchell set up. “With Buildr, it’s easy to go through companies, contacts, opportunities, tasks, activities, forecasting for financial meetings, and workforce for staffing meetings. It’s just all right there.”

Now, G.W. Mitchell has seamlessly integrated Buildr into its day-to-day business processes, taking full advantage of an unlimited seat model by giving administrative access to eight of its department heads.

"We're operating more efficiently as a company."

Myers spoke of his company’s newfound collective efficiency: “Buildr’s made it so that all of our contacts could be all within a unified working document. Names can be shot around throughout our leadership team and anyone can instantly jump in and quickly look at contact info and histories. It’s awesome to sit together and add tasks and set weekly reminders and nothing falls through the cracks. We’re getting more tasks completed when we go into meetings than ever before. As a result, we’re operating more efficiently as a company.”

At G.W. Mitchell, the concept of a CRM that was simple to navigate while also being construction-specific was an admittedly high ask. As the saying goes, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. This was why, in part, G.W. Mitchell initially sacrificed some usability for construction-specificity prior to Buildr.

Myers noted that Buildr was able to check both boxes of usability and construction-specificity: “A great user experience set Buildr apart for us. With [the other CRM], there were certain custom fields that would take five or so steps to accomplish when Buildr would just take one step. [The other CRM]'s customization is a bit too cumbersome for what we were looking for and with Buildr it’s just so simple.”

Seamless workforce planning and Procore connectivity

For G.W. Mitchell, finding a CRM that executed on being construction-specific, useable, and collaborative, was found in Buildr, and the partnership itself was part of the success in that execution: “The support and communication piece of Buildr as a partner has been huge,” said Myers. “That level of respect and helpfulness—they treat us like how we aspire to treat our clients.”

Where the CRM went above and beyond their prerequisites was in Buildr’s ability to bring Workforce Planning into the fold as well as its integration with Procore.

Myers spoke on Buildr’s union of CRM and Workforce Planning:

“On the workforce side, it’s been really easy for our operations people to jump in and look to see where our staff is tied up, who’s available, and be strategic about upcoming jobs. That’d also been previously done in Excel, which only takes you so far. Buildr is just so much more user-friendly than any process we’ve tried in the past.”

While the satisfaction gained from strategically assigning their workforce and maximizing their utilization with ease amplified Buildr CRM's value for G.W. Mitchell, the Procore element was also another welcome bonus.

“Buildr’s Procore integration is a big thing because we’re using Procore across our jobs and that similarity and usability between Buildr and Procore is important,” said Myers. With Buildr’s founders and engineering team originating from Procore, the company touts a Procore integration that they're proud of.

Forecasting a clearer future

In the end, Barrett Myers and the team at G.W. Mitchell Construction, a well-adopted CRM finally in place, look ahead to a very promising future—a future that’s much clearer with help from Buildr CRM’s pipeline forecasting. Myers and his business development team look forward to continuing their close partnership with Buildr through guiding new features and integrations.

With a cohesive and collaborative client relationship management system firmly in place, complete with Workforce Planning, Myers and the rest of the G.W. Mitchell Construction team can focus on what matters most: seeing to the needs and strengthening the bonds of their customers to ensure that they work together indefinitely.

“If you're a general contractor with any desire to ensure repeat business, Buildr will put you in a good position with good habits and processes. This CRM empowers us to achieve exactly what we want as fast as we want.” - Barrett Myers, Director of Business Development, G.W. Mitchell Construction

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