Spotlight on … Lori LaBarge of LaBarge Homes, ABWA’s Woman Entrepreneur of the Year
by Joy Jordan
For the second year, the American Business Women’s Association of Cape Cod has collaborated with Cape Business to honor the Woman Entrepreneur of the Year. This year’s award was bestowed on Lori LaBarge of LaBarge Homes.
During the past year, selected nominees were profiled in Cape Business, and the ABWA board of directors selected LaBarge as the winner. The criteria used by the board in determining the winner include a woman who:
• Promotes the professional endeavors of people through education and community participation;
• Supports the advancement of people in their workplace and community, encouraging flexibility, creativity and freedom;
• Supports professional development and growth through networking;
• Demonstrates true leadership, building team spirit, enthusiasm and community visibility and participation; and
• Demonstrates the ability and willingness to help others, and who gives and shows compassion so that others can live in harmony with work and family.
In conferring the award, ABWA President Denise Dever said, “Lori seemed to embody the spirit of what a woman entrepreneur should be – recognizing service synergies of two growing businesses and coming up with a plan to broaden their service scope to meet their clients’ needs.”
Please describe your business.
LaBarge Homes is a general contracting business specializing in custom homes. We have been providing high-quality, green building and hurricane-resistant construction since 1996. And as a woman business owner in a male-dominated industry, I am proud of the niche we have created in building relationships with our customers to serve all their property needs, through our engineering, real estate, property management and concierge services.
What services and products do you provide to your customers that sets you apart?
I think we have distinguished ourselves through both product and service. We work with a product called Reddi-Form, which is an (ICF) insulated concrete form recently featured on the Bob Vila show. ICF construction is energy-efficient, structurally stable, ideal for high-wind and oceanfront locations and environmentally a better way to build.
The services we provide compliment our construction projects by providing full-service engineering, design and site work as well as a host of maintenance and property management services. This include a home watch service, landscape division, snow plowing and storm watch.
But I’d have to say our concierge services have received a lot of attention from home owners and other businesses alike. The concierge services we provide our clients range from contracting cleaning, food shopping and stocking wet bars to greeting their guests and opening the house for them, arranging transportation, tours, removing boats from the water, stocking wood and accepting deliveries from furniture and catalog companies, even assembling an infant seat for one client, preparing properties for parties and holidays … the list goes on and on. Homeowners realize that it makes sense to have one resource for all their property needs, and businesses that cater to things homeowners may want are now marketing to us directly.
Our concierge services have helped us not only create a unique niche in this business, but more importantly it has helped us maintain a connection with our clients … it gives us an opportunity to be in front of them often when they are considering additional contracting services like a pool installation, additions, landscape design, etc. We know the property, sometimes better than the owner. This connection is why we pride our company on building relationships or as we sometimes say, “We are building customers for life.”
How do you market your business?
I would say we don’t try to market ourselves to every homeowner out there. What we try to do is market more and different services to the clients we already have. Our current clients often provide us with great referrals, an opportunity to service additional property needs they may have, and a new market of homeowners who are indirectly impacted by our work: their neighbors.
We are finding that there are services that our current clients need that we can provide. Adding a spa, sauna, wine cellar, pool, or designing and installing landscape features like koi ponds and stone walls are a natural flow of work for us after having built or worked on the property.
We also do a pretty good job of making connections in the neighborhoods we are working in. Notifying neighbors of the property we will be working on helps to make an introduction to a captive audience who will see our crews, trucks, signs and work over a period of time.
How do you compete with similar firms in your industry?
I don’t really look at what my competitors are doing as much as I watch what the market we serve needs now or may need in the near future. We basically have focused on the things we do well, like quality custom homes, additions or remodeling projects and building relationships with our customers that positions us to manage these properties on an ongoing basis. In the future we may be doing more “environmentally better building” consulting as this topic gains the spotlight and the interest of property owners.
What professional and community organizations do you belong to?
Until recently I was a member of the Laurel School Board of Trustees and involved in the largest fundraiser for the school for six consecutive years. Over the years we have been members of various chambers of commerce and professional boards. More recently I have made a commitment to work with my 10-year-old daughter in finding ways to get involved in the community. We look for ways that might impact women and girls, like making blankets for women dealing with breast cancer, and getting books to girls in other countries who are struggling to get an education.
Is there a difference between being a businessperson and a businesswoman?
I do think women in business are unique as we not only pride ourselves on running a valuable business but we are usually balancing the rewards and challenges of caring for a family. Whether it’d children, parents, employees, colleagues or friends, women are generally the primary care providers for people in their lives. I am extremely fortunate to have four amazing children and all the challenges and rewards that come with having them and a thriving business at the same time. And many times I have felt like I have not provided adequate time to either of them … somehow at the end of the day there is some sense of balance.
Also, I think that the demographics of many markets are showing us that more women have more buying power and are impacting businesses like never before. Many of our clients are woman who are independently deciding what the architectural design will look like and what construction systems and materials will be used on their projects.
Is networking important for small businesses on a place like Cape Cod?
Networking – personally and professionally – is not only an opportunity to obtain new business, but can provide a support system with friendly competitors, potential mentors, information sharing with other business owners, tap into business-to-business relationships, all of which are forms of expanding business.
What are the greatest challenges and opportunities facing entrepreneurs on Cape Cod?
My answer to both of these would be property values and property values.
In terms of recruiting and sustaining a good team of employees, the expense of housing on the Cape makes it difficult for people, young families in particular, to work, live and raise a family here. These high property values also provide ample opportunities for all types of businesses to provide products and services to people who have invested in property on the Cape.
What does it take to be a successful small business owner on the Cape?
I think the foundation for the success of any business relies on the team of people who are involved in running it. In our business, this includes our construction crew, subcontractors, our office staff, even our family, who I rely heavily on for child care. I own this business with my husband, Todd LaBarge, and I believe we have done a good job in defining, over time, our distinguished roles in the company and we respect those roles and each other. We both have a great enthusiasm for this business, and the opportunities for more and different future business. I think you can proceed more confidently with new ideas and changes when you have the support or the candid suggestions of a trusted business partner.
What advice do you have for other women trying to be successful businesspeople and entrepreneurs on the Cape?
Persevere – if you have a vision, a passion, a good idea, then move forward.
Maintain perspective on your failures and your successes. Business owners have to really put themselves out there, take risks, test new ideas, services, ways of marketing. Keep failures in check – they’re never as bad as you think. Keep your successes in check – relish the moment, then move on to more good work.
Surround yourself with good people, professionally and personally.
Most of all, find a mentor, hopefully a female mentor, but someone who can share experiences, trials and tribulations. Someone who is not afraid to give you good candid advice and suggestions. Someone who can help you make connections. Back in the early ’90s while working in corporate banking, I had the opportunity to work with the first female president of a bank. As she was the first woman to head a bank, primarily a male-run industry, she was consequently invited to many professional women’s business organizations and asked to speak about the “glass ceiling”; that invisible barrier that many women face in corporate organizations that prohibits them from moving into executive level positions or leadership roles. I had the opportunity to research and assist in speechwriting for this person. What I discovered while researching the topic was that one of the main reasons women were hitting the “glass ceiling” was that they did not have the network of mentors that men did, meaning there was nothing to compete with the “old-boy network.” Women did not have other women who were mentoring them and helping to groom or prepare them for the next level. Many times there just weren’t enough women in those executive positions to help mentor others. Women just were not reaching out to each other. I’d like to think we’ve moved forward since then, but we have a long way to go. Women should reach out to other women; consider it a personal success to have provided an opportunity for another woman to be a success.
Any female heroes?
I have many woman who I admire and who have had an impact on who I am today not least of which are family, friends and mentors along the way.
However, I love to keep inspirational quotes around the house and office and have found that Eleanor Roosevelt has a quote to cover almost anything. Not to mention she was really an amazing woman, politician, columnist and humanitarian. I’ve read a biography about the Roosevelts and I’ve read many of her “My Day” columns, from which many of her quotes come, but quite honestly I first heard my favorite Eleanor Roosevelt quote while watching the Princess Diaries movie with my daughter who was about 6 at the time;
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Eleanor Roosevelt, 'This Is My Story,' 1937
US diplomat & reformer (1884 - 1962)
Any other thoughts?
I don’t really see myself as being much different from many businesswomen who I have met in our community. And I am particularly honored to know that we are celebrating women like me – I am just a businesswoman who loves my work, works at creating a business that adds value to our community while turning a profit, a mom trying to be a good mom, and a citizen in my community where I can contribute in small ways, along with many other women, to have a big impact.
Published in Cape Business November/December 2007
Joy Jordan is managing editor of Cape Business magazine. She has worked in the technology and publishing industries and was chief copy editor for Cape Cod Community Newspapers. 
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