One of the earliest steps in the construction process for every house is setting up the temporary utilities. Believe it or not, it's awfully tough to build a house without power and water...just ask any of my subs when I forget to do so.
The other day I was on the phone with Progress Energy (who I've always had good experiences with btw...unexpectedly considering the reputation of most utility companies). I was setting up a new account for a house in Wedgewood. A funny thing happened when we got to the usually well-rehearsed part of the conversation where the rep asks me for our "office" address, "office" phone number, and "office" fax number.
I put "office" in quotations of course because we don't actually have an "office". Definitely not one with an automated phone system, cubicles and a fax machine. We do have to use a physical mailing address for the company, but when I told her we don't have an office phone and that I've never actually faxed anything since I've been at Garman Homes....SILENCE.
Then:
"Well, uh...wait...huh? So what is y'alls company's number? Whuduhya mean y'all don't have an office phone? Or a fax? What do y'all use then? How do people call y'all?"
At that point I got to share with her our approach to company office overhead. It sounds boring by topic, but the philosophy behind it is eye-opening!
Why tie ourselves down with a phone cord, fax machine, file cabinet or most importantly, a single location?
Instead we're outfitted with iEverything and store our files in Dropbox (cloud file management - #checkitoutforyourself). Without trying to sound like an Apple comercial, we put the best tools in the best people's hands and send them out to do their best work.
Why stand at a fax machine or wait around the office for a phone call when an Email, Text, Facebook post, Yam, FaceTime, Picture, Blog, Video or Face-to-face meeting is 1000x better and more enjoyable and efficient?? And I can do it all from wherever I need to be. At any time. From any place.
We love being on the leading edge and thinking outside of the box (aka office).
PS - Big ups to GO Realty (SHOUT OUT!) for letting us mooch on y'alls copy machine! (Spoiler Alert: Garman Homes occasionally has to do business with the non-2012 world still)
- Brian Russo
