If you asked any one of our Designers, I bet they would tell you they've heard this statement dozens of times from our home owners and builders... "Hmm that's a good question.. I'm not sure. What would YOU recommend?" This question comes up no matter how much information that a customer gives us. Sometimes they feel like they have all the information they could ever need before they meet with us. After all, many of our customers have been thinking about building their dream home for years. Sometimes even decades. So that's a lot of time to be thinking about what they want. But it's also inevitable that they haven't thought of EVERYTHING. That's where we come in. Our Designers are highly skilled in what they do and asking the right questions can take a project from good to great.
If we're not always on the cutting edge of what the latest and greatest trends are, then we can't confidently answer that question. So to make sure that doesn't happen, we try to be very proactive when it comes to continuing education with all of our Designers. These are just a snippet of some of the events and training seminars that we've attended in the past few years:
- International Home Builders Show in Las Vegas
- Omaha Street of Dreams
- Kansas City Artisan Home Tour
- Designer team meetings
- Presentations by interior design firms
- Visiting job sites as they are being constructed
- Showroom visits to vendors and suppliers showcasing the latest product trends
And the number one thing we do to make sure we always stay up to date with the latest and greatest trends? Listen to our customers! It sounds simple but honestly one of the coolest things we see as Designers is inspiration photos and ideas that our customers are bringing us. Oftentimes our customers are the ones actually CREATING the trends without even knowing it. Because we design so many homes at VirtuActive, we can then take all those ideas and bounce them off of each other as a group. If one Designer is having trouble figuring out a space then he or she can ask their peers if they have any recommendations. Oftentimes another Designer may have run into the same issue and have a simple solution or a new trend / idea that they may have recently come across.
The reason this is all so important is because at VirtuActive we never want to get complacent. Designing a home is like anything else. If you let habit take over then you don't grow and prosper. We've always considered ourselves a forward thinking company and part of that thinking is always being on the cutting edge of what else is out there for design trends. At the end of the day, what we do as a company is oftentimes creating someone's dream home. So keeping that thought in mind drives us to give our customers an ends result that they can be proud of for years to come.
Sincerely, Sam Friehe
COO | Director of Production
