Cut Takeoff Time by 75% or More
Reduce Errors & Increase Accuracy
Bid & Win More
Profitable Work
Company Story:
Ken’s Discount Building Materials is a building materials supplier and lumber yard that services both residential and commercial customers. They have a huge selection of building materials including lumber, hardware, plumbing, electrical, furniture, foundation supplies and other building materials. The majority of their business comes from servicing contractors. They also offer delivery directly to jobsites.
The mission of Ken’s is simple and to the point: To provide good hometown service and maintain a close relationship with our customers. They cultivate good customer relationships by offering the best prices, fastest delivery and offering complimentary add-on services like free takeoff and estimating.
Ken’s was founded in 1973 when the owners, Ken and Dolores Blackman, started off with just 3 stacks of plywood on consignment. They recognized that the community really needed a lumber yard and after a while, Ken’s Discount Building Materials was formed.
Overcoming Challenges:
Steve Greer, Head Estimator at Ken’s Discount Building Materials, has been in the business for over 40 years. He remembers back to the days of measuring blueprints by hand and using a measuring tape to figure out material quantities. “I don’t miss those days at all,” says Steve Greer. “Takeoffs used to take forever!” Steve says that “STACK is the evolution of this same process, only it’s much quicker and more precise.”
The estimators at Ken’s were spending a lot of time doing material takeoffs the old-fashioned ways on paper. The company was getting behind and not getting takeoffs and estimates done for their customers in a timely manner. After making the decision to update their processes, Ken’s looked at several different takeoff & estimating programs before finally selecting STACK.
“STACK is saving us a lot of time and we’re able to get estimates to our customers in a much more timely manner”, says Josh Smith, Owner & Manager at Ken’s Discount Building Materials. “With the added time that STACK has saved us, we’ve been able to bid on a lot more jobs. It has helped us greatly!”
How STACK Has Helped Ken's Discount Building Materials:
As a supplier of building materials, Ken’s decided a long time ago to help out their customers by providing materials takeoffs for free. This add-on service helps the company gain the customer’s business “most of the time” and it also helps preserve a good working relationship with their customers. This would not be possible without STACK which has sped up their takeoff process exponentially!
“The biggest way we’re growing our business is by using STACK to speed things up and go after jobs that are further away and go after larger commercial jobs”, says Steve Greer. “Our end goal is to make the contractor happy and STACK helps us accomplish that!”
