Cedar Rapids Home Builders Show

By 3Chip Media - www.3chipmedia.com 

Sunday Feb. 20th I had the chance to visit with some of the vendors at the Cedar Rapids Home Show at the US Cellular Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  

I think we were able to pick up some new clients and established some new relationships.  But what has stuck with me the most is what people were saying.  I would ask how the show was going or how much new construction they were seeing in Cedar Rapids, Marion and Hiawatha and the response was this.  There has been a huge rise in people just maintaining or updating the home that they are in now instead of searching out new features for a New Home.  This was said by just about everyone from the guys with the Overhead Doors, Patio Block and especially the insulation vendors.

So I did some searching around and found out some interesting conversations on Twitter and Facebook.

It seems that people are more and more asking their friends what they would reccomend for tips and tricks or who to call when they are looking for a service to do the job.  This is a great place for you, the business owner to start grabbing those potential customers immediately instead of them trying to Google-It and finding your competitor first.

I too am a homeowner and I am beginning to put more money into my own home rather than feeling like I am going to buy something down the road.  The economy is still shaky and will be for awhile, so most people are doing the same thing.  Taking care of the ol' place ourselves.  When we cannot do it ourselves, we ask our friends and family who does the work for them or what is a good furnace to get.  We all have some sort of experience with one place or brand, so we offer out what we experienced.  If the comments are negative, this is a good time for the Brand or business to step in and offer some sort of customer service, whether it is a facebook post or Twitter Tweet about it.

The show was amazing, I couldn't beleive the number of visitors walking around and talking to the vendors about their products and seeing people walk away saying, Let's talk more about this later in the week.  This is a great event if you want to put together a remodel, looking for ideas and to see everyone that you need to in one location, and if they are a member of the Cedar Rapids Home Builders Association, they are probably a reputable company that offers great service and products.  I learned that just from the caliber of individuals that I met there and the fact that I have worked with many of them over the years one way or another.  

I had the opportunity to run into a few of my old clients from other places that I have worked also, I remember building their first website for them and how skeptical they were at the time.  Now, they all have a website, put even more money into it and are looking now at how to compete with the other guy to get to the top of the list.  This can be pretty hard to do if you are the little guy or the new guy in the game.  These are established companies, they have a long standing reputation and they have had time to tweak their websites to come up first in Google, Bing or Yahoo and that is tough to beat.  Unless you know some tricks and how the search engines really work.

To end off this story, I have to say that I cannot wait until this summer when a few of the projects that I went to see about get started.  I'm getting some new Spray Foam insulation from one of the vendors, a little concrete work done by another one and I'm even going to get the wife that new kitchen floor from another vendor from the show.  All in all, it was a great event to attend. I would highly reccomend it for you to consider visiting the Cedar Rapids Home Builders Association Home Show next year.

Written by Shannon Appleby - 3Chip Media - Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Recommended Link - http://www.crhba.org