On Nov 9th and 10th we held our wood and wood Window Repair Hands-on Workshop.
This year it was held at the Farmer's Museum in Cooperstown, New York. The Farmer's Museum was an ideal place for the workshop. It was held in the painting and carpentry shop. This gave us access to a great space to work. The Museum "donated" several wood windows, shutters, and a terrific wood gate to repair.
Contractors and interested homeowners came from Tennessee, Michigan, Connecticut, even South Carolina.
Topics included inspection and documentation, estimating and marketing just to name a few. The hands-on portion included epoxy wood repair techniques, window glazing, and window weatherstripping.
Ample time was dedicated to the hands-on portion. We began at 9:00am and finished around 4:00 with an hour break for lunch.
The wood gate was of particular interest to everyone. This gate was in the shop to be repaired and offered a terrific opportunity to learn a few tricks for applying and sculpting the Flex-Tec wood repair epoxy.
A great deal of time was spent discussing various marketing and customer service issues. Discussions included how to find opportunities for repair in local markets, dealing with customer's perceptions and expectations of repair, and charging a fee for inspections and surveys.
In the future, I plan on expanding the information regarding the marketing and sales opportunities. These topics are vital to growing a solid repair business.
Our next workshop will be held in Denver, Colorado during the Colorado Preservation Inc. conference in February, 2008. Details will be posted here: http://www.advancedrepair.com/hands_on_workshop/upcoming_workshops.htm
I will also hold another workshop this spring at the Farmer's Museum in Cooperstown.
Join us next year!
Cheers,
John
