CCL Customer Spotlight- TruDesign

Categories: Community, Renovation

CCL takes pride in not only being a valued partner to our hard-working clients, but being an extension of their in-house team. From the small mom and pop shops to the larger remodelers and developers, CCL treats every customer like they have a real stake in their success – because they do. Being an employee-owned company, brings out the best in every member of the team, going the extra mile for each of our clients. And for a relatively new company, like TruDesign, that extension of their in-house team level of customer service is something that Stephen Trudeau leans on to grow his company.

TruDesign

TruDesign, serving the South Shore and Weymouth is an intimate design build firm specializing in single family construction and remodeling. Started in the past five years, Stephen Trudeau and his team of designers, managers, and builders take great pride and are passionate about their hard work day in and day out. The team works in two phases with clients who are looking for kitchen and bath to full remodels and everything in between–the design and planning phase first, moving to the construction phase second. CCL has become an integral part of both of those phases of TruDesign’s process. 

When Trudeau first started out, he would use the big box stores and jump around to a variety of different lumber yards in his area to source material. He was never introduced to a sales rep in any of those places, leading to never building a strong relationship with a particular yard. That all changed the day he attended an event at CCL’s showroom and met CCL’s Vice President of Sales, Ron Kalinowski. 

“I told him I’m a young company looking for a sales rep that can help us with day-to-day things. A few days later he matched us up with Steve Harris and Tom Ahern. We’re all similar in age, they’re an employee-owned company, so they were excited to get to work with someone as they’re looking for long-term relationships. We’ve been working together for about 2.5 years. Today, about 90% of everything we buy is through CCL.”

Steve Harris, Tom Ahern, and Stephen Trudeau quickly became close business partners, and even closer friends after they all went on a trip to the Andersen factory together in Minnesota. Today, Harris and Ahern are treated as a part of the TruDesign team. From placing timely orders for time-sensitive jobs to answering questions and guiding the TruDesign team to success, Steve and Tom are consistently there with knowledgeable insight and understanding.

“The great thing is that I just make a phone call, put an order together, and they set up the delivery and it’s on our job site the next day.”

Just a few months ago, TruDesign landed a challenging but exciting project–a custom home in Quincy, MA that is contemporary and high-end. This project is a highlight for the company as it’s different from anything they’ve done before. It became the perfect opportunity for TruDesign and CCL to partner together to WOW the homeowner and deliver the project without a hitch. The project required different and specialized materials that both TruDesign and the homeowner weren’t entirely familiar with but they worked closely with CCL to source these different materials in the most timely manner to adhere to the project’s timeline. 

“CCL has been great at getting sales reps to the job to showcase new products and educate my team and the client.” 

From the start, CCL has proven to be a true partner. Being a young company, Trudeau doesn’t have a lot of time and resources to train someone new to the field, but he knew he could lean on Harris and Ahern to help him train. 

“Jake is my project manager, who’s new to the company and new to the industry. They’ve really helped him grow in the process. Harris is like a second employee, my team talks to him multiple times every day. ”

Even with the global pandemic, the partnership and overall business has never been better. CCL has been very forthcoming with knowledge of materials, availability and cost. Trudeau can truly lean on CCL as a support network to continue to build his team and his business. 

“CCL has been great at staying on top of subs and vendors and trying to get us the material we need to keep our project going.”

Check out TruDesign’s work and reach out to Stephen and the team to start your project today! 

Here at CCL, we value our clients like they’re an extension of our own team and want to see them all succeed. We have many different services we offer all of our contractor partners. From our HomeScape’s showroom to our custom shop in which we can do things like bend trim. Check out this video for some inspiration and schedule some time to come in and meet a member of the team.