because I’m there. When you hire the big guys, you get a project manager. When you hire Willow Tree to build a house, you get me. This company is me. It’s my life.” That level of personal investment extends to the clients he chooses to work with, and he is refreshingly direct about it. Andrew makes clear from the start that Willow Tree is not the right fit for everyone. “If you’re looking for the cheapest price, it’s not me – you’re wasting your time,” he says. “But if you’re looking for the best quality product at the end of the job for a reasonable price, that’s where I come in.” Most of the clients who do come to Willow Tree arrive not through advertising – despite tens of thousands of dollars invested over the years – but through word of mouth. Referrals come from past clients, from tradespeople in his network, and from the kind of community trust that can only be built over decades. “I build a house for one person and they tell five people how happy they are,” Andrew says. “Word of mouth is the best advertising you can get.” That kind of word of mouth speaks to the strong relationships Willow Tree forms with all stakeholders, including subcontractors and trades. According to Andrew, those partners aren’t just professional contacts – they’re people he has known for most of his life. Over the course of his career, he has worked across virtually every discipline involved in homebuilding, from flooring and trim work to windows, doors, and painting, including time as a service manager for a window and door company and as a site foreman for a general contracting company. The relationships that emerged from those years are the backbone of how Willow Tree operates today. “The guys that I work with are my friends,” Andrew explains. “I have a personal relationship with the owner of every company I deal with. The plumber on my job site isn’t someone I’ve just met – he was on my back deck last week having a beer with me.” THE CONSTRUCTION SOURCE CANADA
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