Pro Spotlight: Lisa Campfield
We were excited to get the chance to interview Lisa Campfield, co-owner and Design Leader for Homeworks of Alabama. Together we talked about her start in the industry, and how her psychology degree has helped her with her clients.
Can you tell us how you got started?
In 2001, we started buying distressed properties and flipping them with the goal of building enough revenue to start a residential construction company. In 2004 we opened Homeworks of Alabama with a focus on custom homes.
Even as a teenager, I've always had my foot in the door of one design project or another. I built a reputation for interior design just by word of mouth; that was really natural for me. But my passion has always been building. I love the beauty of the structure and that I could be a part of something special for someone's home.
In the early 80s, whenever I was looking at college, being a builder just never came to my mind so when I attended college I majored in psychology. Then I had my children and stayed at home until they were in high school. When we started flipping those houses back in 2001 we were taking the kids with us so that they could earn a little extra money.
Then when we started building our homes, the children were already heavily involved, and two of the three children stayed in the building business and are with us today.
Staying together from design to build just seemed natural, because building was something that I always wanted to do. I've just always been fascinated with it. Although the design seemed easy, building was a little more challenging for me.
I love that your starting point was psychology.
Yes, I still use it today. Even when I'm sitting down with a client, the first thing that I do is give them the psychology of the build. There’s a chart (I got this out of an NAHB book, because psychology is just a part of who I am) I give to them and say you're gonna be really happy when you see this,and then you're gonna get frustrated when you get here, but keep in mind there's still things going on.Have there been challenging projects? How did you manage them using your psychology background?
The stress level of building a home is up there with the stress level of divorce. It’s a very stressful event. So we have to be mindful that this isn't something that someone else does every day.
You also have to take into consideration that a woman typically is going to be your buyer, and that you're gonna have to cater to her differently than you are the man. His deal is the numbers and where the TV's gonna be, and those sort of things. Usually she's going to be the one who's going to pick everything out and you're gonna have to really sell it to her, even though you've got to sell the numbers to him.
What are some of the other differences in behaviour you’ve noticed?
The women are very detailed. Which is who we are by nature, all women are. I think at the end of the day, they want their house to be their home. And I think that men look at it differently in that they want to just please the wife.
A lot of times, the women only attend the design meetings. Because I'm a part of the contract signing I'm a part of the design meeting, and then I'm in the field with them as well.
I'm not going to visit every field, but for the most part, I get to build a relationship with both of the clients. More so with the woman because I’m trying to encourage her and help her make those decisions without her feeling like someone's just going to hand her a huge catalogue and say, 'Choose your lights.'
It's so daunting, and it really does create more stress for something that ought to be one of the most exciting events in a person’s life.
Our goal is to try to ease those areas that we know are going to be stressful. We try to give everyone plenty of time to make their decisions. We also try to make sure that we don't overwhelm them. According to what kind of build it is, if it's a true custom that someone wants, almost a concierge service for lack of better words, then they're going to be okay with some of those decisions being made.
We can kind of get a sense of what that buyer wants, and we also do a survey before we sign the contract to know how much they want to be involved. We do those steps just so we can walk into the whole relationship with a better understanding of what they're looking for.
How important is the cost and keeping it low when discussing design with the client?
I do understand that the numbers are important, but if someone has their heart set on a light fixture that cost $1,000 as opposed to one that they would settle for at $700, over a 30 year mortgage, what is $300? What is important to you is what we also want. We try to meet that need as much as we can.
Do you feel the customer involvement is important to this house building process?
Oh, we hope so. We want to continue to build on the relationship, I don't ever want to come off as a know-it-all, because there's different variants of expertise within our business.
I like for project managers who are overseeing the build to be with us so that if clients have any really specific questions like, for instance, why is this wall two inches over? They're gonna have an answer for it.
If the client is not satisfied with that answer, we would go back and make that wall exactly like it's supposed to be. But different things happen in the field that you can't always control. Maybe a particular code is enforced that was ignored last week, things like that. We always have to be ready to be flexible to meet the customer's needs while still following guidelines.
What are the most recent trends that you're seeing potentially with millennial buyers, or millennial homeowners?
This is kind of funny, I'm 56 so I had no idea that this even existed, but a CAT6A has been very popular with the millennials. Apparently this just gets so much more internet speed to your home in such a quicker amount of time, so this is something that we're just seeing this year. It was like no one ever requested it before, but now it's becoming a huge thing.
As far as design, we are still seeing a lot of the modern farmhouse looks, especially with millennials, they really like those white cabinets, white countertops, and of course the shiplap look. One of the things that I do love about working with millennials is that they like a minimalistic modern - and when I say modern I don't mean like Manhattan, New York. I mean clean contemporary straight lines. Designing where less is more. I love that look. So that's something that we see with a lot of the millennials.
Do you also experience where millennial homeowners tend to be more decisive or more prepared?
Absolutely. And this is another one of the things that I love about working with millennials. I can say this, because I'm 56, so when my age of buyer comes in, they want to not micromanage, but to keep their fingers in everything. Millennials would be satisfied if we could put everything online and let them just choose everything from their laptop at home.
I understand it because they might have children or other things that need to attend to, but with my generation, we want to see it in person. It's like there's a trust issue among my generation. For millennials the trust is already there. They make quick decisions and stick to those decisions. 'No, I'm good with it. Yes, I like that. No, I don't need to see it. No, I'm good with it. Yes, I want that.'
What would be your advice for incoming young women who are interested in this profession?
I'd say be patient and confident in your abilities and just treat people the way you want to be treated. Don't expect as a woman to be treated special, but at the same time don't expect to be treated differently or worse just because you're a woman. Understand that you are in a male dominated field but at the same time, don't look for excuses to pull the woman card when things don't go your way.
One of the things that I'd highly recommend is that all women read this book. The book is called How Women Rise by Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith and it's a book of 12 habits that hold you back from your next raise, promotion, or job. This book was so excellent and needed! It was one of those aha! moments I had in my career.
I do know that men think one way and women think another way, but this book was written by a woman and a man. The man is a business coach and he would see all these women that were coming in to be coached with business and it would almost be self-sabotaging, but in their mind, they thought they were doing the right thing.
It's such an opening, common sense book. So every mentee, every colleague that comes when I get a chance, I just say, 'Just read this book.’ I wish that I had this book 30 years ago, I would have understood so much more than I do now. Because - and this is for example, One of the habits is that you think your work stands for itself and you don't want to be self promoting. We don't want to come off as self serving. We just feel we're workhorses. So we're just thinking we're working, and everybody's noticing it.
Like I said before women are very detail oriented, but most men aren't. They're not going to notice you hard work unless you tell them to pay attention. For so long, I was overlooked in situations, where the boss was a male, and I would think he was going to recognize everything that I was doing. Learning to be my own advocate changed everything for me.
If you have someone that's just really looking at reports, they're not going to know what you did, and it's not like you're bragging. You're just really saying, 'Hey, this is how I've added value this month,' and I think so many women need to hear that and speak up for their own work.