Over the last 20 years there has been a huge effort  to dominate and control the foundation repair, waterproofing, and crawl space moisture control industries by franchisee networks in the main population centers of the United States. Some of the larger states may have 4 to 5 dealer/operators in a relatively close proximity to one another in order to saturate the market with that particular product. The manufacturer will often support that operator or operators by flooding marketing resources and leads into that particular market with multifaceted marketing campaigns. On the surface, these companies may look impressive as they have large call centers, fancy websites, and large commission based sales teams that are utilized in an effort to control that local market. Unfortunately, since there is a one-size-fits-all mentality with these companies, and salespeople are compensated by commission, consumers are often misled, misdiagnosed, and/or overcharged for a protocol that is often over designed, embellished, and/or completely unnecessary to resolve the problem reported.

• Franchisees must pay royalties to the manufacturer, and this cost gets passed on to the consumer.
• Manufacturing centers may be hundreds or thousands of miles away from your market so materials come from a long way. The shipping costs get passed down to the franchisee, and therefore passed on to the consumer.
• The manufacturer may not be offering the right application and means for your particular problem because they have no knowledge or understanding of the problems homeowners face in this market.
• Call centers are often poorly trained. Operators have never performed a home inspection so they don’t understand the problems that people report so they dispense canned responses that are wrong and don’t make sense.
• Franchisees experience high turnover rates in the production teams. This means crews are often poorly trained. The quality of the work can be sub-standard to the actual expectations made by the sales person during the developmental stage of the project. Job foremen are often paid with production based compensation. This encourages sloppy workmanship as they race to get finished ahead of schedule to achieve bonuses.

If you live in Charlotte or the surrounding counties around Mecklenburg County and are looking for an Independent consultant to help you with your foundation repair, structural wood, waterproofing and/or crawl space moisture challenges on your home we would like to volunteer to help. Over the last several years, it has been my goal to offer cost efficient solutions to my customers by utilizing small, local independent companies that are not affiliated with franchisees. Call me at (704) 787-6972