Ryan D. Mayer
Owner | Mayer Building Company
Fun Fact
My kids, June, Alice, Jonah, and Grant and I had an awesome summer hanging out on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and in New Orleans.
What unique challenges have you faced here in New Orleans? How do you approach them?
As we see things like interest rates and local insurance up-charges steeply impact the residential construction world, we are girding for its impact in the commercial sector. We are always marketing to institutional spenders and now even more so. That said, we are also focused on the entrepreneurs that build with us. In New Orleans, we all know how important home-grown entrepreneurial business is.
At Mayer Building Company, we strive to be the confidante, the trusted source. This approach works for both the larger establishment customers as well as the risk-taking impresarios.
Another rising challenge is requests for budgets outside the industry standard. Leads/customers are anxiously trying to decipher budget prior to complete design, often called “conceptual budgeting.” The challenge is responding to a request for pricing without all the design information, with even recent historical data fairly moot, and with subcontractors ready to pass on conceptual pricing exercises.
To tackle this, I engage with the designer or owner and ask them to share their vision for the future with me, which helps me determine whether to be radical or conservative in budget range. This also helps uncover pain points we need to head off.
Our conversations establish good faith and fairness. Often enough, those leads/customers truly do not wish to waste anyone’s time, but they do need a better sense of market costs—so as long as all parties are clear on the “conceptual” qualifier in conceptual budgeting, we will continue to support.
What do you consider your biggest successes and what allowed you to achieve them?
One big success of the last year has been the economic outgrowth of any of our construction projects. It’s apparent in every contract we sign. For example, a simple build-out of a coffee shop or renovation of a doctor’s office in an existing building not only puts to work divisions of tradesmen and laborers but also nets profit to the owner-entrepreneur subcontractors. Those subcontractors all have employees, too, not only laborers and technicians, but also supervisors, controllers, estimators and so on.
The same project affects the material and parts suppliers of the needed trades as well. On top of that, the project requires architects, engineers, and paid third-party inspectors. The project brings in new utility services, utility and technology accounts and sometimes rent for a landlord. New equipment, furniture, and artwork for the space is most often locally sourced.
Then—once inspections are passed and the customer is happy—the owner opens her business, employs local staff, and makes a living for herself and her family. The success of this coffee shop or doctor’s office propagated by a successful construction project matters. It matters to me as an emotional connection, but it matters also because this owner might build another location in another area of town.
As a builder, I submit that any given physical space tells a story. When a commercial client invests in building or renovating a physical space, they are really taking steps to build, enhance, and develop their own business. In other words, building a customer’s space is building a customer’s business. Our customer creates an experience for their customer, attracts and retains good talent, and sets the stage for their product or service.
The customer doesn’t need just any ol’ “plans-and-specs,” lowest-bidding contractor. They need a visionary, a confidante, an accomplished businessperson who also happens to be the lowest bidder. That’s where we come in.
702 N. Carrollton Avenue
New Orleans, LA 70119
504-315-8423
