From Humble Beginnings To Big Success

From Humble Beginnings To Big Success

Uncertainty Is The Ultimate Motivator

From Shawn Clemens, Founder of Clemens Home Solutions

When I started this company at the ripe old age of 19, I already had years of experience in the Muncie area exterior home solutions industry. But swinging a hammer is a lot easier than running a business. Luckily, I was that rare teenager who understood just how much I didn’t know, and that understanding helped me build the biggest and best installation crews in Indiana.

Scared To Death

There’s a reason that the workers of this nation outnumber entrepreneurs. Going out on your own is scary at any age, and doing it at only 19 is even scarier. You’re just learning how to take care of yourself, and now you’re trying to take care of your customers, too.

If you care about what you do, you’re constantly worried that you may have gotten something wrong, especially at the beginning of a new endeavor. That’s how I felt back then. But being brought up in a culture of accountability and truth gave me the tools to deal with this insecurity in a proactive manner.

Contact And Followup

When you aren’t certain how your work is being viewed, you have two options – try to outrun the chance of bad news or ask for feedback. My upbringing whittled that down to just one option – following up with my customers.

I actively sought responses from my customers and adjusted my methods in response to their feedback. That’s not to say I was making a mess of things at the beginning, just that a young kid just starting out has a lot to learn about the world and dealing with a homeowner’s needs.

Checking And Rechecking

As my business and experience grew, the list of things to double-check grew as well. I developed a habit of never assuming anything and always verifying that everything had gone as planned. I learned that the smallest details were the most important aspect of the job, and those lessons have become integral to our company’s core values.

Corner cutting was never something I considered an option, but I learned through watching competitors what a mistake such choices could be. These options cemented my resolve to never take the easy way out or go cheap on materials to save on cost. No matter how tight things got in those early days, I never let the bottom line make my decisions when it came to the quality of our work.

Smooth As Silk

The advantage of starting young is that you get to make your mistakes and learn from them before you are responsible for the livelihoods of your workers. By the time I was ready to expand, I had a pretty good idea of how to run a home solution contracting business.

Even as big as we’ve become, we’ve never forgotten the lessons I learned as a young man. We still refuse to take shortcuts, still check every step, and still follow up with our customers after we’ve finished their projects.

The result of all this effort is a machine that runs as smooth as silk and an army of past customers who love what we do. There’s no way we could have amassed a perfect 5-Star record without our humble beginnings to show us the way.

The road may have been long, with plenty of bumps initially, but the rewards have been many. That success has allowed us to share our good fortune with the Muncie community and give our employees the opportunity to earn good lives for themselves. We remain proud of every project we complete, and our confidence in our workers allows us to offer the Clemens Guarantee on our work.

If you need work done on the exterior of your Muncie, Indiana area home, contact us at Clemens Home Solutions for a free estimate. You won’t be disappointed.