“Every single customer has his own particular need,” says Jim Banfield, vice president of Oakland, Calif.-based Metal Building Company. “It could be that he needs columns removed in the building. … We’ve done huge jack beams in buildings with reinforced footings. Anything anybody can imagine from cutting a huge hole in the roof and building a pop out because he has a conveyer that’s too tall for a portion of the building to reinforcing a bay of a building so he can put a big piece of mechanical on the roof.”
The niche Metal Building Company fills is meeting the difficult and unique needs of its customers.
That niche was defined by president and founder Randy Soso in 1977. He had worked for a couple of metal building companies but noticed nobody was handling repairs. In the Bay Area, the fog and coastal environment can be tough on metal, causing corrosion, so there was considerable demand for repairs. And changing business needs, such as a garbage company needing more room to maneuver its trucks (hence, the desire to remove columns) created more need. Soso established the Metal Building Alterations Co. to meet those particular needs and found success.
Over time, the company also began to build new metal buildings, so in the late-1980s, Soso changed the name to Metal Building Company. The management team now comprises of Soso, Banfield and vice president Bryan Morrish. The philosophical underpinnings from the early years remain. Metal Building Company fills the niche that is defined by a metal building owner’s needs to solve a difficult problem.
“Our ideal job,” says Banfield, “is one thatisn’t advertised. You can’t go get the plans at the different plan holder offices. They contacted us directly. Maybe they were referred by somebody. They just want it done right and it’s a design-build project. It doesn’t matter if it’s new or a repair, and maybe they have a big problem.”
Banfield goes on to describe the company as more similar to a plumbing contractor: it handles repairs. On new projects the team prefers to work as a subcontractor to a general, where its responsibility is solely for the erection of the metal building. And they love repairs. “Repairs are almost recession proof,” Banfield says. “When the economy is bad and nobody’s building, but they’re sticking to the building they’re in and maintaining it.”
The average job size, roughly figured by Banfield from annual revenue and number of projects, is $41,000. “That’s brought down by a lot of repair work,” he says. “A guy backs into a building and we do a $3,000 repair to some damaged wall panels and trim.”
Prospecting
But how do you find those jobs? In this area, Metal Building Company is probably stronger than most contractors. The company is focused on marketing in a way that is more like a home improvement contractor than a commercial building contractor.
The company tracks leads assiduously and compiles statistics on their efficacy. “Anybody who calls, we always ask ‘How did you hear about us?'” Tracking that gives Banfield and the others on the management team the understanding that 40 percent of their business is from repeat customers, 20 percent arrives by word of mouth, 10 percent is driven by marketing flyers, 20 percent comes over the Internet and the final 10 percent is from Yellow Pages and Blue Book advertising.
The marketing flyers are a great example of how the company takes a unique approach to marketing. It first identifies neighborhoods with a good number of metal builders. Then it hired college students to browse Google Earth to locate metal roofs and metal buildings. The team compiles addresses on all the buildings. When it has about 500 addresses, it gets the building owners’ names from the city and sends them postcards that address their particular needs as metal building owners.
“We differentiate ourselves on quality and the nitty gritty of details,” Banfield says. “In a meeting, if they ask eight or nine pretty technical questions, we’ve been doing it long enough that pretty much we know a way to do almost all of them. Or, if we don’t, we know multiple engineers in the metal building industry
(American Building Co., material suppliers, etc.) who we can call and get a response. Sometimes right there while we’re in the meeting.”
Management and scheduling
Mixing large new metal buildings with small repairs can wreak havoc on any scheduling system. Metal Building Company has 11 field employees in three crews. “You could have two guys on one crew because all they’re doing is replacing pieces of a building,” Banfield says. “And the other could be a big re-roof and you’d have five guys out there. And then four guys on another job building a building or something.”
Making sure that works out right and is run efficiently falls to the management team. According to Banfield, each of the team-Soso, Banfield and Morrish-handle their own projects, but regularly confer with each other for technical issues and other management needs. “Everyone wants to be his own autonomous king,” Banfield says. “We work out all the details with the owner, write our own contract, order materials and schedule crews. We’re in complete control of our own fate and destiny.”
Facilitating that streamlined process is a philosophy that Soso established at the founding of the company. Estimators also work as project supervisors, so there is no hand-off from sales to production, which improves communication and efficiency.”Randy’s philosophy is super streamlined,” Banfield says, “so nothing gets lost in translation.”
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Vital Stats
Year Founded: 1977
Location: Oakland, Calif.
Website: www.metalbuildingcompany.com
Geographic Areas of Service: Greater Extended Bay Area
Services Offered: New metal buildings, reroofing, residing, gutters, additions, alterations
Number of Employees: 11 field, 6 office
Manufacturer’s Affiliation: American Buildings Co.,
Eufaula, Ala.
Management Team:
Randy Soso, President
Jim Banfield, Vice President
Bryan Morrish, Vice President
