Trust lies at the heart of every good professional relationship, and good relationships are what leads to referrals, repeat business, a loyal team and positive experiences for everyone involved. The ideas here will both build that all-important trust and help you run your business more smoothly. Once you work them into your routine, you’ll be able to save time and effort while creating the most professional impression possible.

1. Create a True Collaboration

With clients:

Whether your clients want to be involved on a daily basis or just want periodic updates, allowing them to have the level of input they want, making them feel heard, will go a long way toward building trust. The Client Dashboard in Houzz Pro brings homeowners into the collaboration process while giving pros the ability to customize it and decide which information to share. Clients can leave comments and messages on product selections, budgets, mood boards and more; can pay invoices; can see the detailed timeline; and can view daily logs of the project work that’s been accomplished. A new feature of Houzz Pro even allows for a comment thread on files and photos.

Interior designer Kate Roos sends her clients the Client Dashboard right away, “so they can see everything in one place,” she says. “With this tool, our clients know that they’ll have all the information they need and a record of all the little details.”

With your team:

Similar to the collaboration features available to clients, Houzz Pro offers a number of ways to get input from your team. With Houzz Pro Project Management Software, team members can see schedules and budgets, add their own daily logs to a project, comment on selections — such as to get clarification on installation — and more. A project manager, for example, can upload progress shots of a bathroom remodel or add notes about a delay caused by a supply chain issue. As the account owner, you can pick what to share with your team members.

2. Communicate Reliably 

With clients and team members:

When you respond in a timely manner, whether to an inquiry from a lead or a question from a subcontractor on a jobsite, you show that you care about the work and value the person’s time. But it’s hard to do that if your communication extends across phone calls, emails, text messages, direct messages on social media and notes sent through your website, because you can’t be on all platforms at once. It’s also extremely difficult to keep track of communications across many platforms, which means vital information could fall through the cracks.

Houzz Pro lets you store all of your communications in one place. Moreover, comments can be attached to selections, photos and files, so the comment thread is clearly visible. Not only do you have a clear record of what’s been said or requested, but it’s easy to find the info you’re looking for if you need to refer back — no digging through your email inbox or scrolling through dozens of text messages!

3. Have a Proven Process

When your business workflow is standardized and repeatable, it instills confidence in everyone you work with.

With clients: 

Being able to show potential clients from step one that you have a proven and reliable process for everything from design meetings to invoicing will create a great first impression — and will keep building clients’ confidence throughout the whole project. When you let them know that you use Houzz Pro for creating everything from estimates and mood boards to schedules and invoices, they’ll know right away what to expect, and that you know what you’re doing. 

With your team:

When your team members know what to expect at every step of the way, can see updated schedules in real time, can easily communicate with you and can refer back to tasks, messages and more, they can focus on doing their job well instead of tracking down information. Having a repeatable process also builds loyalty, because team members know that future projects will be handled professionally as well. And the more projects you and they handle at once, the more valuable a proven process becomes.

With Houzz Pro, you can invite team members to join on your account and give them access only to the information you choose. Construction pro Susan Heinz finds this aspect especially important. “Our team needs to see every detail, so I like that we can share what we want to share,” she says. “Houzz Pro makes it so easy for our whole team to stay on the same page throughout an entire project.”

You also can create a project task list using the Task tool. Team members will be notified of their tasks via email, giving them clear direction on what they need to accomplish and allowing you to see when tasks have been completed. 

4. Be Efficient

Efficiency in both construction and design can help you avoid delays, cost overruns and disgruntled clients, subcontractors and vendors in addition to building trust.

With clients:

When you show clients that you care about efficiency, you let them know that you care about providing the best value for their money — that you won’t be charging them extra for admin tasks that could have taken you less time. And when you use Houzz Pro’s templates to handle tasks such as building takeoffs and estimates, they’ll also be impressed with how efficient and speedy you can be without sacrificing accuracy. The software also lets you handle other project elements that might otherwise contribute to delays, such as change orders, with ease, and lets clients sign off on estimates, proposals and more right online.

With your team:

When team members know that their time is valued through efficient processes, such as the ability to use a time tracker in the field versus having to record hours manually, they’re more likely to want to work with you again on future projects. Efficient processes also allow them to easily see their assigned tasks, the schedule and any important communications without their having to search in multiple locations.

5. Stick to a Schedule 

Avoid the kinds of delays that disappoint clients and lead to lack of team member availability first by creating a realistic schedule and then by handling any changes quickly. You also want everyone to see any schedule changes in real time, so that they might be able to make up for any delays in one stage by adjusting in another stage. 

With clients:

Via the project dashboard, share with your clients an easy-to-understand visual calendar with project stages, task due dates and milestones. This way they can easily see how any changes they want to make will affect the entire schedule, and can see any changes in real time, avoiding surprises.

“I used to use super expensive timeline tools that are complicated, and that clients don’t understand, but now with the Houzz Pro Schedule tool, it's actually built-in, and clients are able to see it right in the dashboard,” construction pro Bryan Payne says. 

With your team:

The Schedule tool is integrated with Tasks, meaning team members can see all of their assigned schedule items and tasks in one place. This makes it easier for them to work through to-do lists and stay on top of their sections of the schedule. The Schedule tool is especially a boon when you and they are working across multiple projects, because it provides a global view of all the tasks assigned to individual team members. It keeps everyone in the loop about what is outstanding, making it easier to stay on schedule.

Try Houzz Pro free today to see how it can increase trust, efficiency and professionalism in your own business — the very things that lead to growth and success over the long haul.