Career Buzz interview with Martina Ernst, President & CEO, Wo-Built Inc.: Part Four

CIUT 89.5 Show: Career Buzz Canada, Wednesday, 11-12 pm
Be inspired by ordinary people with extraordinary stories
who share the secret twists and turns in their own careers and lives.
Screenshot credit: ciut.fm/career-buzz

This is the last part of a transcript of Career Buzz interview with Martina Ernst, President & CEO, Wo-Built Inc. (Click here for part three.)

Martina Ernst interview on Career Buzz Canada with Mark Swartz



Part 4:
What were the biggest challenge you had to overcome when starting up your business?
How do you continue to integrate your social mission with your for profit objectives?
What triumphs have you experienced as an entrepreneur?
What advice would you give to a start-up entrepreneur?

Mark: Now, Martina, when you started up what would be the biggest challenge that you had to overcome? You have talked about two different messages that might be at odd - design/build and you have to bring women into the trades. What other challenge you have had to overcome because you have been in this business now for 5 years and most new businesses go belly up within a year or two, so did it past that critical stage?

Martina: Well, we are very lucky, in a sense that we were able to sustain it for that long. But we do have all the issues that any other start-up has, we have a cash flow issues, we have issues of how we get our message out there, how do we get clients, and because of what kind of projects we do. Our projects, the additions and extensions, start ranging from $100.000 and upwards, so it’s a big chunk of money you have to dedicate towards us and that is one of the challenges actually. You are a new start up and you are asking people pay all this money and there is a trust factor. Of course, with longevity, being in business for five years is helping a little bit. So, that all sorts of issues we had as a start-up company.

Mark: OK, today you are an ongoing and you are a thriving small business. How do you continue to integrate your social mission with your for profit objectives?

Martina: It has not changed – what we do as we grow our social mission grows with us. The idea is when we make a commitment to the social mission you don’t minimize it after you getting some traction on your business. You grow your social mission with you. You actually expend it, you make it bigger, and you change direction into another social mission which is possibly more in line with what you do as your profit sector.

Mark: Could you give us a quick example of how you have grown that social mission along with your for profit site?

Martina: Well, we are on a building site and on women in construction site, the more sites we have that can sustain women the more women we hire from the colleges.

Mark: Excellent. You do get your word out with the colleges as well? Do you liaise with them? Do you have some sort of arrangements at all or it just on informal basis?

Martina: Well, the colleges know about us, some of them do, and George Brown certainly does. We have a liaison with them on ongoing basis and when we do have the sites we contact to them. Yes, we are in contact with them.

Mark: OK, great. Now, in terms of being ongoing you must have been experienced a couple of triumphs in addition to your challenges. So, maybe you can share some of the good stories or good sites of what’s going on in terms of getting clients, bringing people in from to help mentor them. What can you think of?

Martina: For me, personally, because my background is architecture I just love to see things built. So, I always get a huge buzz when I actually see a product finished. But one of the most heartfelt things which happen was when somebody we mentored really expressed the gratitude to us and it was very heartwarming that we made of a little bit of difference in that woman’s live.

Mark: So, it is intrinsically rewarding as well as profitable for you.

Martina: Well, it has to be because being a social entrepreneur is the way of life. It is really comes from your heart off what you are doing. So you are sacrificing some profits towards that social mission. You are making choices.

Mark: Hopefully, not always so. I am sure that in some cases when the mission melt with the for profit site as you say it can grow in tandem in conjunction with each other and over time you get bigger slices of both.

Martina: Yes, that is true. All of this goes in conjunction with each other but you still make choices. You get bigger, you have bigger profit margin. How much of that do you dedicate towards your social mission? It is always a choice of what you do and you have to have a real commitment to that other site of your business.

Mark: OK, Martina, you are a veteran now of social entrepreneurship having lasted five difficult years. What advice would you give to a start-up entrepreneur; who want to be able to bring some sort of social goodness, some sort of cause into their business?

Martina: The most important thing is that your message, your social mission is in line with your business. Then you can push both things forward in the same way. One of hypothetical example of that would be, for example a panel manufacturer who wants to alleviate asthma in kids which might be cause through mould. This manufacturer can manufacture mould resistant panels. So, those two things are inline then. The mission of alleviating asthma though mould with what they manufacture. If anybody wants to start a company like this you have to really look into what are your messages, who is your target market, and are these things actually inline.

Mark: OK, that’s great information. You are listening a Career Buzz radio, Canada’s unique radio conversation which empowers lives and energizes organizations on CIUT 89.5 FM.

Career Buzz interview with Martina Ernst, President & CEO, Wo-Built Inc.
Part 1: What Wo-Built Is about?
Part 2: Challenges of Running a Business;
Part 3: What Peapod Life Is about?
Part 4: Social Entrepreneurship Is a Way of Life.

About Mark Swartz
Mark Swartz, MBA, M.Ed., is a leading Canadian speaker, Monster.ca National Career Coach and Columnist; author of best-seller Get Wired, You're Hired!, and CareerActivist. He may be reached by visiting careeractivist.com.

Career Buzz interview with Martina Ernst, President & CEO, Wo-Built Inc.: Part Three

CIUT 89.5 Show: Career Buzz Canada, Wednesday, 11-12 pm
Be inspired by ordinary people with extraordinary stories
who share the secret twists and turns in their own careers and lives.
Screenshot credit: ciut.fm/career-buzz

This is part three of a transcript of Career Buzz interview with Martina Ernst, President & CEO, Wo-Built Inc. (Click here for part two.)

Martina Ernst interview on Career Buzz Canada with Mark Swartz



Part 3:
What Peapod Life is about?

Mark: All right, in terms of your current business and you have mentioned that you are beginning to moving into this whole green sphere: the eco-building or building and design what is going to be an environmentally-friendly in sound. So, you have an initiative that you are working on right at this moment. I have gone to trade shows to visit you and I’ve seen you at your booth and you were whipping up a storm and chatting it, chatting it away. What about this initiative?

Martina: Well, we call it Peapod Life. And it a glass enclosure that is for both living and working and growing plants on a larger scale. So, you can do both live in it, you can work in it, and you can grow plants, and, we actually growing food plants in it, as well.
What we did over the last couple of years was to identify that there were other issues in society that needed help. One of them is food. We are always concerned about food. Yesterday, I was at an event which was hosted by FoodForward Toronto and people were talking about food shortages in Toronto, so that people cannot actually get fresh foods in some areas and so on. It just emphasizes that there is need out there for people to supplement their food sources.
We came up with the product that allows both living and growing off plants. We have solar cells to produce the energy to help run it, we have rain water recovery to help watering the plants, so it is more than just having an energy-neutral building. We are looking at having an energy-gaining and energy-producing building.

Mark: This is not simply adding a green house to your backyard. You are talking about building a living space – an extension to your existing home that allows you to be like a living room with plants and stuff growing in it. Is that essentially it?

Martina: Yes, that is exactly what it is. Because you cannot really live in your green house: it is not insulated enough, it has not the right ventilation, and you don’t have humidity control, so we have to integrate all these elements in it. And our social mission in that sense is a) to provide a different way of looking at buildings and b) to provide possibility of people having an alternative to their food sources.

Mark: That’s great. Just to remind to our listeners that I am speaking on Career Buzz Radio and I am chatting with Martina Ernst, a founder of Wo-Built, a women's build social entrepreneurial company for profit that not only designs and builds in this case some green space, additions to homes that their newest product but also helps to bring young women into the workforce within a construction trades, so - social mission and for profit.

Please click here for part four: Career Buzz interview with Martina Ernst, President & CEO, Wo-Built Inc.

Career Buzz interview with Martina Ernst, President & CEO, Wo-Built Inc.: Part Two

CIUT 89.5 Show: Career Buzz Canada, Wednesday, 11-12 pm
Be inspired by ordinary people with extraordinary stories
who share the secret twists and turns in their own careers and lives.
Screenshot credit: ciut.fm/career-buzz

This is part two of a transcript of Career Buzz interview with Martina Ernst, President & CEO, Wo-Built Inc. (Click here for part one.)

Martina Ernst interview on Career Buzz Canada with Mark Swartz



Part 2:
What are the challenges of running a business that also has a social mission?
How to get media exposure for your startup?
How to support your social mission?

Mark: Great. You say some of your people you have mentored have gone on to larger different experiences; do you think that you have infused into them the spirit of mission that they may carry on as well?

Martina: I think to a certain extent, maybe. I cannot talk for them but I am hoping that we have, because we think that social entrepreneurship, if you are talking to a smaller company like ours, is that our influence maybe like a pebble in the water when you throw it in, and maybe the ripple effect will actually bring a wider and wider and wider influence sphere.

Mark: It’s nice analogy. Now, you are running a business that also has a social mission that must be somewhat complicated because from time to time there, I am assuming, could have been some inconsistencies or challenges: you want to do right; you want to do the best thing for your people but at the same time you gotta make a buck. So, tell me a little bit about that.

Martina: We actually had many challenges over the last five years. One of them was that the economy was not very good so, what happen also was, because we actually had a training mission which was coupled with a construction company which is a building company, so we had two different messages. We had our training and mentoring message and we also had our building message. And to push both of them forward to the same extend was quite challenging because the two messages are not that much inline. We found that over time because our social mission of women in construction took off, it actually got a lot of PR and we had a lot of success with it in terms of that. Now we feel that it just runs on its own and we are getting more and more involved in green building. So now we have a new product which is an integrated green building mission in many ways, you can say.

Mark: OK, great. Let’s come back to the green portion of it in just a moment because it’s very topical and it is mission oriented. But you mentioned something earlier I think our listeners might want to hear especially if they are thinking about starting a business, social mission. You talked about getting PR, public relations, media exposure for the training of women in construction, and you said that got some traction. So, how that came about?

Martina: Well, actually, sometimes we approached people and told them about what we were doing and they got excited about it and they started writing about us or we, actually, got approach by them because they have heard of us and wanted to interview us. That is how we got the PR.

Mark: Tell me what kind of media exposure did you get at this point?

Martina: We were written up by The Toronto Star, at one stage; and we were mentioned in a couple of other articles, as well.

Mark: OK, great. At that point, did you push on it or really it was what’s coming in, and this is nice, but you were satisfied with the level of exposure?

Martina: That is an interesting question because hindsight is always 20/20, and I think we probably should have pushed a lot more then that what we did. We were just very, very pleased that people were writing about us and they wanted hear about us but, I think we did not actually push it enough.

Mark: OK, but for businesses that just starting out there are so many different aspects that you need to focus on, so, it’s understandable that once momentum begins in one area, likely, you are getting some publicity, you are taking your eye for a bit, you move on to the next thing, like you know, make me a few bucks.

Martina: Well, it was also coupled with the fact that the two messages were intertwined, so we also had to get our building message out because that’s really what makes us money and that is what actually supports our social mission. So we had to push on that a lot more than the social mission and somehow it got turn around.

Mark: As these things sometimes do.

Please click here for part three: Career Buzz interview with Martina Ernst, President & CEO, Wo-Built Inc.

Career Buzz interview with Martina Ernst, President & CEO, Wo-Built Inc.

CIUT 89.5 Show: Career Buzz Canada, Wednesday, 11-12 pm
Be inspired by ordinary people with extraordinary stories
who share the secret twists and turns in their own careers and lives.
Screenshot credit: ciut.fm/career-buzz

Recently, a good friend of mine, Mark Swartz, asked me to take part in his radio show Career Buzz as he wanted to do a segment on Social Entrepreneurship.

Mark has been a Career advisor for many years and his show provides information about possible career directions and choices.

I was very touched that he thought that I could contribute to the subject, but albeit a bit nervous as I usually don't call myself a social entrepreneur. But Mark managed to get some useful information out of me and I hope you will enjoy listening to the interview.

Many thanks to Mark Swartz for making this interview a success.

~ Martina Ernst

Martina Ernst interview on Career Buzz Canada with Mark Swartz




The following is the transcript of a recent Career Buzz interview with Martina Ernst, President & CEO, Wo-Built Inc., one of few female-led design and build companies in Toronto.

Part 1:
What Wo-Built is about?
How the company has a social entrepreneurship bend?
What kind of successes had Wo-Built had?

Mark: Welcome to Career Buzz - Canada’s unique radio conversation that empowers lives, riches careers and energizes organizations.

Hi, I am Mark Swartz, founder of Career Activist dot com, Canada’s free career website. Social entrepreneurship - what is it? Well, it’s basically entrepreneurship with a social mission: making money, while making a difference. Maybe you will start your own business but you want to inject the measure of social goodness still make a profit.

I have two fascinating young ladies with me this afternoon and they are going to talk about their experiences with social entrepreneurship. Coming up with the second half of this show I have Elisa Birnbaum. She has started a nationwide online magazine called seechangemagazine dot ca, and she features social entrepreneurship and small businesses, medium sized businesses from coast to coast who have been able to put together a viable business plan and an ongoing business while also injecting social mission.

But right now with us in the studio I have a wonderful individual and friend, her name Martina Ernst. Now, Martina started off a company called Wo-Built, and what is the designation at the end to the web-site?

Martina: It is dot com.

Mark: Martina has a background in design/build construction building and also she looks at the green side of the equation. So, welcome this morning, Martina.

Martina: Thanks Mark.

Mark: It’s great to have you here.

Martina: Thanks for inviting me.

Mark: Now, you have got some interesting things going on at your company and it’s called Wo-Built. But maybe you can tell me a little bit about what the company is about and how it has social entrepreneurship bend?

Martina: We are design and build contractor for residential market and also for small commercial projects. We specialize for residential market for additions, extensions, new build and on the commercial side we like to be involved with the alternative medical community and build offices for them.

Mark: OK, you say you build offices. What is that in tell?

Martina: Usually, it is interior renovations because these offices are in larger commercial buildings and we do fit-outs for them.

Mark: OK, now, Wo-Built is short for … what exactly?

Martina: It is short for ‘women build’ because the company is 100 percent women-owned. So, roughly about 6 years ago I met my business partner Elida Huignard and we actually met at a CAWIC, which is the Canadian Association of Women in Construction, it was their inauguration party. So, we got chatting and we were both pretty much taken by the number of women in construction we actually saw there. It’s still a rarity to see women in construction.

Mark: Certainly, in Canada, it is.

Martina: So, we identified that there is an opportunity there to actually help women in construction, and one of the things we said when we got chatting was why don’t we open up a construction company that helps mentor women. It was our social mission. We started Wo-Built with a social mission at its heart which was mentoring women in construction. We see ourselves as a little bit a stepping stone for them. We hire young women out of colleges. They want to go into the construction industry as trade’s women and we offer them a stepping stone on our sites to start off their careers there. So they have their first site experience and afterwards we hope they actually find a contractor which can give them an apprenticeship because we are not set up for that.

Mark: Great. Wo-Built is a social entrepreneurial business in design/build and you help young women get their feet into the whole area of construction building. What kind of successes had you had over because you have been in business for how long, Martina?

Martina: Just, over five years.

Mark: OK, what kinds of successes have come up over that time?

Martina: Well, we actually had a couple of women which we helped in our sites and since then they moved onto what we believed to a better thing – in construction. They actually started big careers and we were very happy to be able to be helpful to them to start off their careers. We felt that women actually had more difficulties to start careers as tradeswomen in construction because there might be a perceived disadvantage maybe in terms of strengths or skills, or so. We are helping them by giving them their first experience on site.

Please click here for part two: Career Buzz interview with Martina Ernst, President & CEO, Wo-Built Inc.

Relax During Your Home Renovation: Press-Release

Wo-Built: Relax During Your Renovation
2011 @ wobuilt.com

For Immediate Release

Wo-Built Inc. Announces "Relax During Your Renovation" Campaign for Oakville

Toronto, (November 1, 2011) – Wo-Built Inc., Ontario’s social, ethical and environmental builder, is about to launch its newest campaign promoting complete quality home upgrades for homeowners in Southern Oakville. The campaign’s focus: relax during your renovation.

“Many people are hesitant to undertake a major building project for the simple reason that they — or someone they know — have had unpleasant experiences with renovation projects in the past,” Wo-Built President Martina Ernst said. “Wo-Built is different. We listen to our clients. Their concerns are our concerns. Our genuine empathy and honesty gives Wo-Built clients greater confidence in their builder and a more relaxed experience.”

Although built with modest sizes and the technology of their day, older houses along the Lakeshore in Oakville (and thru the GTA) can be completely rebuilt to new standards or custom specifications. “Few people appreciate they need not compromise their Lakeshore location in order to have the large home of their dreams,” Wo-Built President Martina Ernst elaborated. “We can transform a 1000 sq. ft. bungalow into a 3000 sq. ft. two-story plus loft, complete with home theatre or legal apartment in a newly re-imagined and bone-dry finished basement.”

Martina Ernst, Co-founder and President/CEO of Wo-Built Inc, is a sought-after contractor, designer of residential and commercial properties, lighting designer, mentor and speaker. She has worked on numerous building projects, both in Canada and internationally.

Wo-Built Inc. is a leader in green building and complete home modernization, with an active social mission to train young women wanting to pursue a life in the trades as well as educating homeowners, commercial property owners, investors and governments. Wo-Built is an accredited Better Business Bureau (BBB) general contractor, a Member of Live Green Toronto, Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) and complying with the RenoMark™ ethical code of conduct. To find out more, please visit www.wobuilt.com.


Media Contact:
Attila Lendvai, VP of Strategic Development
Wo-Built Inc. - Innovative Design and Build
Suite #3, 1287 St. Clair Avenue West
Toronto, ON M6E 1B8, Canada
attila@wobuilt.com
647.460.0560

# # #

5 Good Ideas Book Launch

Photo-Collage: Five Good Ideas Book Launch
October 18, 2011, Toronto's Network Orange;
Hosted by: Author and broadcaster Jane Farrow;
Featured: Interview with the editors, Maytree Chairman Alan Broadbent and
Maytree President Ratna Omidvarand, insights from a panel of contributors.
Photos: Olga Goubar @ wobuilt.com

Five Good Ideas
Practical Strategies for Non-Profit Success
Edited by Alan Broadbent and Ratna Omidvar
Published by Coach House Books, Toronto 2011

Here are some quick thoughts on possibilities for merging profit and non-for-profit worlds in construction industry.

I got dragged out again of the office to attend a book launching event. The event was held at the Downtown Toronto's ING Orange Café, a really interesting community space to hold meetings with a lot of green ideas: living walls, reusing the old warehouse structure, movable walls to reconfigure spaces to suit and many more. The book ‘Five good ideas – practical strategies for non-profit success’ edited by Alan Broadbent and Ratna Omidvar of the Maytree Foundation. I was captivated what some of the contributors mentioned, and I got the book.

On cursory inspection of the index the topics reflected the same issues as running a company: leadership, organizational effectiveness, human resources, resource development, communications, advocacy and governance. So will it be that non-profit organization behave similar to for profit organization? Or will there be differences.

On a personal note, since I tried to help non profit organizations become profitable in one of my former lives, the book will be extremely interesting to see if any of my ideas are reflected. For Wo-Built, since we are spinning out our social mission, this book will be invaluable.

Since I haven't read the book the jury is still out, but if my gut feeling is correct this book is also valuable for any CEO of a construction company. My personal believe is that our industry, the construction industry, should be responsible for implementing its own social initiatives such as apprenticeships, education of the next generation, health and safety issues and more. Some companies are very active in this regard, but we could do so much more as a collective, and not just leave this to nebulous “government”. We, as an industry should look at hybrid solutions, combining our for profit missions with social innovation to provide us with the future labour force the industry can be proud of.

Maybe after reading the book I can report on some of the possibilities of merging the two worlds.


Martina Ernst
President/CEO
Wo-Built Inc. - Innovative Design and Build

links:
nextbillion.net: blog: Development through Enterprise: The Best of Both Worlds? Blending For-Profit and Non-Profit Models
by Shanika Gunaratna

socialedge.org: forum discussion: Creating a Hybrid For-Profit / Non-Profit Social Enterprise Structure
Hosted by Jeff Hamaoui (May 2005 - Closed)

attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca: Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General: Not-For-Profit Incorporator's Handbook

ic.gc.ca: Industry Canada: Federal Not-for-profit Corporations: Create / Maintain a Not-for-Profit Organization

wobuilt.com: blog: Why do so few women choose the skilled trades as a career?

East York Mirror: Wo-Built Home Builder with New Affordable Initiative

Wo-Built Boutique Home Builder Advetorial
The Mirror, Thursday, June 23, 2011, page 14
Credit: East York Mirror

Recently we kicked-off our marketing campaign for our new ValueXeptional Classic 2nd Storey Addition initiative in the East York Mirror.

We had two reasons for choosing East York, Toronto as our first area – one, the area’s building stock consists of a large number of bungalows and two, more importantly, we like the area, it has a friendliness and community feeling about it.

ADVERTORIAL
Wo-Built boutique home builder

As boutique home builders we are experts at designing and building additions, extensions and large renovations.

We offer a complimentary "Dream House" assessment which will determine your needs, wants and possibilities. In the words of one of our clients, "Thank you to Wo-Built and everyone who did such great work on our little house - we will never forget the great experience of our renovation and the truly exceptional folks that made it happen!"

We are all about creating both space and "wow" factors with architectural component. We are also about giving customers the most value for their money and in the face of having so many similarities, we came up with our new ValueXeptional Classic Second Floor Model Initiative. This is a second floor structure with architectural and design features such as master bedroom with either cathedral or coffered ceiling, an en-suite bathroom with large shower area, skylights and light pipe, and where possible green construction.

Design and Build of second floor (excluding all finishes) is affordable at a starting price from $167,000 plus HST due to our fast track processes. Finishes contract is separate.

For more information about the services offered by Wo-Built visit www.WoBuilt.com or call 416-402-2679.

The East York Mirror
Thursday, June 23, 2011, page 14

links:
Renovate with ValueXeptional Classic Second Storey Addition
A Second Storey Addition: New Construction Approach

We are using KLOUT – The Influence Metric

Screenshot: Wo-Built's Klout Dashboard
Social Media Analytics
Credit: Klout - The Standard for Influence

We are probably one of the few small to medium sized construction companies that use social media extensively. Hence it is important for us to see how effective our social media efforts are. In the past the only indication of effectiveness was our hit rate to the website by links from Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Like anything, social media is an investment in time and a return on investment needs to be achieved to justify the activities. Do not kid yourself, anyone who claims you can do social media effectively and meaningfully in 15 minutes a day, is thoroughly mistaken in our view. Effective social media means you should correspond with your friends and followers, answer their tweets, acknowledge their input and comments. In return, comments from you to them are also important. No amount of automation will achieve the personal touch, however there has to be structure. As a sample, we set-up the Wo-Built Daily on Paper.li not to miss interesting articles and comments by our followers and friends. But even this will take more than 15 minutes.

So, when we heard about KLOUT we jumped on the chance to see our effectiveness and our measure of our overall online influence. To our delight we found that we are classified as 'Socializer's, a hub of the social scene and people count on us to find out what is happening. We are also influential at present in the following topics: toronto, construction, business and neighbours, all topics close to our heart and our expertise.

Influence is defined as per KLOUT’s own website: “We believe that influence is the ability to drive people to action -- "action" might be defined as a reply, a retweet, a comment, or a click. We perform significant testing to ensure that the average click-through rate on links shared is highly correlated with a person's Klout Score. The 25+ variables used to generate scores for each of these categories are normalized across the whole data set and run through our analytics engine. After the first pass of analytics, we apply a specific weight to each data point. We then run the factors through our machine-learning analysis and calculate the final Klout Score. The final Klout Score is a representation of how successful a person is at engaging their audience and how big of an impact their messages have on people.” Scores are out of 100.

Our Overall KLOUT SCORE is 37, which means "You are effectively using social media to influence your network across a variety of topics".

Our True Reach is 92, which means "You have a small but tightly formed network that is highly engaged".

We are delighted by the scores, as they show that we are not wasting our time; however they also show some of the potentials. We need more responses from our friends and followers and we will be actively working on those. We will further relationships with women in the trades and construction, green professionals and of course our neighbours in Corso Italia and our clients.

The score on KLOUT gives us another tool to analyze how we reach our public. Leads for projects will come increasingly through social networking. That’s why it is important to know how effectively our message connects with our network and subsequently prompts potential clients into action to buy our services. In the end all that counts is money in the till.

Martina Ernst
Wo-Built Inc. - Innovative Design and Build

Wo-Built Inc Daily: We Are Publishers

Screenshot: The Wo-Built Inc. Daily
Easy to Read Newspaper-style Format
Spreading construction, design and build ideas through social media
Credit: Paper.li

Paper.li – Be a publisher
Paper.li organizes links shared on Twitter into an easy to read newspaper-style format. Newspapers can be created for any Twitter user, list or #tag.
@SmallRivers - Creator of paper.li

We are publishers courtesy of paper.li, who compile our tweets and those of the people we follow in a newspaper form every day for free. We love The Wo-Built Inc Daily for three reasons:

1. It shows all tweets of the day of our Twitter friends in one place. So we do not miss interesting tweets from people and companies we like to see updates from. Often I find stories about design, renovation or construction which I consider educational or informative and which, since I do not check Twitter every hour, I would have missed.
2. We can share the paper with our friends and followers and of course Paper.li is an open forum and anyone can view the papers. Previous editions are archived and can be used for future reference. We can choose the keywords we want to share and the newest features include great editorial powers.
3. The look of the paper is phenomenal. It is well laid out, easy to read and to navigate. It simulates a real newspaper and therefore has more of a stimulation effect than just reading the tweets as it shows the attachments in full with images and text.

Wo-Built Inc Daily is only the start for us. The next step is to setup papers which are geared to specific topics such lighting, green, environment, construction and architecture, topics which are important to us and which we tweet about all the time.

I found paper.li through people I followed on Twitter since they used the application and shared their papers. I thought this was a wonderful idea as it referenced the contributors (some of them grabbed my content) and gave such a great opportunity to engage in a conversation with Twitter friends. We have in turn recommended the application to others. Check out The Toronto Corso Italia Daily, run by the Corso Italia Business Improvement Area (BIA), Wo-Built’s home turf.

Martina Ernst
Wo-Built Inc. - Innovative Design and Build

New Features: Flash Video & Social Media Buttons in Our Website

Collage: Wo-Built Website Updates: General Contractors
Specializing in Boutique, Green, Commercial Projects
2011 @ wobuilt.com

We are busy now to put more information and updates on our website.

There are a couple of things need to be fixed. Well, it's a work in progress and the website will continually be updated with information on our new projects.

General Contractors Specializing in Boutique, Green, Commercial Projects

At Wo-Built we have developed unique assessment processes to realize the vision of your home or commercial space. In both cases our assessment will determine your needs and wants and the best way to achieve them.

As boutique home builders we are experts at designing and building additions, extensions and large renovations. For commercial projects our team of business, financial and construction professionals will be able to determine the viability of any project and bring it to a successful conclusion.

Our designs are all about the space, the light and the environmental comfort using green design where possible. We look for innovative ways to create interesting spaces for comfortable living and in the case of commercial buildings increased brand value for companies.

Based in Toronto, we have completed design and built projects throughout the Greater Toronto Area. We offer a complimentary "Dream House" Assessment or our Assessment for Business Premises in this area.

Our company is based on social missions, one is helping and mentoring women succeed in the construction industry.

Click here for our complimentary "Dream House" Assessment or our Assessment for Business Premises or contact us on (416) 402-2679.

Please take a look at how you can browse our website in a new way.

Wo-Built Inc. - Who We Are

Wo-Built's New Flash Video
Who We Are: Residential, Commercial,
Community & Affordable Housing, WoBinna,
Our Social Mission, Women in Trades,
Training & Mentoring for Women, Green Solutions

Please follow us on:

• Blogger
• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
  

link:
Wo-Built: Welcome to Our Newly Designed Website!

Why Do We Use Facebook in Our Construction Business?

Screenshot: Wo-Built's Info Page on the Facebook Social Networking Service
Credit: facebook.com

Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life.
Facebook | Facebook

We facebook!!!!

Why do we use Facebook in our business? For the same reason we use Twitter, LinkedIn, Blog and other social media avenues. To create a buzz around our design and build business, Wo-Built, the construction industry as a whole, and to entice women to become more interested in having a career in the building trades.

About a year ago we started embracing social media as the way to connect to people. We are a company that is strongly community focused and many of our initiatives are designed to help women, the community and the environment. But we need the world to get to know us, what we stand for; of course we also want to show off our achievements. In the past due to our social mission the written press was interested in reporting about us and though this was a great endorsement, it is not constant exposure. Social media gives us the chance to update on an ongoing basis.

Facebook is a great tool for us. A) It is easy to use. B) It allows us to have a page for friends for special messages and a page that is visible to everyone. It permits us to stay in contact with friends quickly, by dropping them a line, comment on their posts or just liking what they said. It lets us dialog with our friends and hopefully helps them understand what the company is about. We had marketing successes with Facebook; people found us and called us for renovation and construction estimates.

One of the most interesting aspects of Facebook and Twitter for me is that I can research and view interesting up to date articles and pictures about art and architecture, the green technology and other design related subjects that friends and strangers are willing to share. For me it is a learning tool.

It is also a great way of letting everyone know about events. We have just posted our next workshop event “How to Design and Build a Green Home Addition or Custom Home” on Facebook. We invite you to be our friend on “wo built” or like us on “wo-built” and of course we would love to see you at our event. Feel free to RSVP.

Martina Ernst
Wo-Built Inc. - Innovative Design and Build

Also you could be interested in reading:
contractorsupportnetwork.com: Facebook Versus LinkedIn - Which Social Networking Site Is Better For Your Construction Business?

intelisystems.com: Advantages Of Using Facebook Places For Your Construction Company

constructionmarketinguk.co.uk: Social Media satire 3: The construction sector laughs off the past and looks to the future with Social Media!

Connect to some Wo-Built's Facebook friends: Hard Hatted Women, Independent Women Homeowners, Tomboy Tools Canada, Moxie Trades, Women in Construction

Using LinkedIn as Our Social Media Tool

Collage: LinkedIn Answers
Ask a Question - Answer Questions: wobuilt q&a
Credit: LinkedIn

Martina Ernst @ LinkedIn
CEO - Design & Build General Contractor - Renovations with a Woman's Touch
Toronto, Canada Area
Connections - 122 connections
Industry - Construction
Websites - Company Website + Blog

Everyone in the business world knows that LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 80 million professionals using this social networking platform to exchange information, ideas and opportunities. LinkedIn Answers is a great place to connect with other professionals to share business knowledge and expertise. Here are a few of my latest answers to the questions on the LinkedIn Answers:

"new years resolutions" Are annual goals too long of a timeframe? would having semi-annual resolutions be a better idea?
Asked by Issamar G. The Entrepreneur's Best Friend at Monetized Intellect Consulting
in Business Development, Career Management

Martina E. @ wobuilt answer:
Actually I have found that you need five year resolutions/goals or longer as well to steer your company in an overall direction. Sometimes ideas and initiatives will take a couple of years to come to fruition. A long-term goal needs to be divided into smaller time frame goals and strategies, which might be yearly or semi-annual goals, or even monthly ones. They have to be reviewed and evaluated on a predetermined frequency to make sure that they are still on track or need to adjusted. We get so wrapped up in day to day activities that we loose focus of the bigger picture.

Does a pop up make you more likely to sign up for a newsletter when you visit a website or does it irritate you? I am curious as to what your habits tend to be...
Asked by Lisa L.: Social Media Specialist - Teaching you how to grow your business via online connections and engagement
in Lead Generation

Martina E. @ wobuilt answer:
I find pop-ups very irritating and they have never enticed me to sign up for or buy anything. Generally I do not sign up for newsletters, mailing lists etc since I am inundated with e-mails I do not want in the first place. I hardly read the newsletters from people i know due to lack of time. Therefore what would entice me to give out my contact info? Usually only if there is something I need right at that moment and I usually only want a one time answer, not a longstanding flow of information. Maybe active social media campaigns would be better lead generators than mailing lists.

I'm doing a little survey for a bunch of my friends. If you're self employed and sell a service - what are your PROVEN tips for getting gigs?
Asked by Isabella M.: Co-Organizer at MentalHealthCamp
in Business Development

Martina E. @ wobuilt answer:
It depends on what your service is, what your client profile is, if your service local or covers a wider area. However, regardless of the above it is important to have a web presence. A website more static, general information, a blog, tweets, facebook etc for more dynamic timely information are a minimum nowadays. However maintaining a successful web presence will require persistence.

What's the worth of a "Like" for your business?
Asked by Hanan G.: Managing Director, 2creativ - a Digital Marketing Agency
in Business Development

Martina E. @ wobuilt answer:
Hi Hanan, I generally agree with Erica's answer and her blog since I believe that clicking the "like" button takes the least effort and that at this point one does not have a relationship with the reader. I also agree that the quantity of likes are meaningless and give a faulty sense of popularity.

However, I consider likes a start to a relationship as they are first points of contact. The content of a post stood out enough that the person reading it noticed it and thought enough of it to press the like button. It is up to me then to develop the relationship by answering the "like" and start a conversation, after all there seem to be some common ground for a conversation. Similar to other forms of contact they need to be acknowledged and maybe something unexpected might be the outcome.