The Design and Construction industry is quite competitive especially if you’re in the nation’s capital region. This didn’t stop three friends, all in their late 20s and coming from different firms. In 2013, they started a company that offers to build every Juan his dream house. Arkhi Builders is a one stop shop that “offers a worry free experience in planning, designing and building.”
“We were part of different companies with different expertise. Robie has a background in Finance, Justinn has experience in Construction. Each of us have our own set of clients and we collaborated to come up with Arkhi Builders,” says Paul Benedict Alba, now Finance. Robie Reyes is the current CEO and Justinn Aldwin Baloran is now VP for Operations. The company is now based in their new home in Taguig City.
During the boom in condominiums, they were doing Architecture design and interior renovations for several clients’s units. It was through this that they got to work with big developers the likes of SMDC, Ayala Land and DMCI. “We were doing this for a year when a residential project was offered to us. Considering that we have a good network of suppliers, we grabbed the opportunity. Today, we are now doing both residential and commercial projects. Arkhi Builders now takes care of the whole process so that clients don’t have to worry about different aspects of planning, design and construction,” Paul adds.
Savvy Digital Marketing
When Arkhi Builders started, it relied more on their existing set of clients, word-of-mouth and referrals. But aspiring to grow and beat other competitors, they considered doing Internet marketing to get more clients and projects. “We are a small company and don’t have the budget for billboards and print ads but considering today’s technology and how people search for information, we invested online,” Paul says. Thus they have a website, a blog and social media presence in Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. But in terms of online marketing strategy, it’s more of Google and Facebook. It is mostly through this that they get inquiries and eventually clients besides the traditional referral network.
How Arkhi Builders handles clients
New clients don’t actually know what to do, said Paul. Arkhi Builders first come in as consultants. Taking a personalized approach on the needs of the clients and knowing the budget and timeframe. Then they slowly introduce their services and costs. Perhaps one of the reasons that the company is successful right now is how it handles its clients. “There are no bad clients. It’s actually managing their expectations and being realistic with the projects. We patiently explain to them the project considering the design, budget and time.” Although the company is not known for a particular design aesthetic, it follows the desires of its clients, their work are generally modern in design.
Arkhi Builders has already a long list of clients and projects: it has built a resort/museum for a client in Bataan, there is an ongoing project north and south of Manila, a construction being done in Cebu, a Palawan property coming and many more. But despite these successes, Arkhi Builders still remains humble. Paul says, “we’re still a small company and the greatest challenge is managing it to what we want to become. There are still lots of challenges coming our way but we are always learning.” Not bad for a company that will turn four years old this February 2017.
Originally published in D+C Magazine, 2016