JEFFREY D. SMITH BUILDERS INC.
307 Joe Road 
North Pitcher, New York 13124
Phone/Fax (315) 653-7207
Established 1985

june1486@frontiernet.net
 

	Since 1985 Jeffrey D. Smith Builders Inc. has been building a reputation as a full service building company. We can provide a variety of services to help you in your building project. We specialize in custom built homes, log homes, light commercial buildings, post frame buildings, additions, remodeling, vinyl siding, replacement windows. We can help your dreams and Ideas become a reality.
	We have surrounded ourselves with dependable subcontractors and suppliers who support our goal of customer satisfaction. Having a strong work ethic is part of our customer satisfaction, arriving at your job on time, and staying on your job till its completion; not skipping around from job to job. Having open communication with our customers throughout the entire job, having friendly and courteous workers is all part of making our goal of customer satisfaction our number one priority.
	We service an area around our home base of about seventy five miles, which is located in central New York. Please contact us if we can help your building ideas and dreams become reality.

 

References
Dear Jeff, Thank you you so much for our beautiful new house. We had fun decorating for the holidays. Everything looks great! Again thank you for making our dream come true. Pam and John Haring Dear Mr. Smith, We recently visited Stewart and Donna Doty's new Beaver Mountain Log Home in Dryden NY. To say the least we were very impressed with the craftsmanship of you and your staff. We are considering building a home of our own and would like to meet with you at your earliest convenience to discuss contracting a log home for us. Cheryl Tarbell Dear Jeff,  Jerry, Jordan, Joely, and I have been in our new home for about one year now and we would like to thank you for making it perfect.  We really love our home and know that many of the reasons are because you, Herb, and Floyd took time to make everything just right.  We are happy to be settled in.  Looking back, I still cannot believe how hard it is to build a home.  There are so many things to think about and plan.  I cannot imagine knowing how to do all this and doing it so well that you make people feel like it is no big deal to ask for special things like cathedral ceilings.  We still notice little things you have done that make our home better like electrical outlets in the closets and hand crafted trim on the beams.  I do not know if you realized this, but one of the most important things having you as our builder was knowing you enough to be able to work right with you or ask for things along the way.  I had never hung wallpaper before let alone with my father, and you were so nice about nonchalantly mentioning a few tips to help us out.  Most builders would act too busy to even care what we were doing.  You guys make a great team.  You all work harder than anybody I know.  We really appreciated how reliable your daily routine went.  Being morning people ourselves, we liked that you were on the job by 7:30am or earlier and ready to work even at 10 below and 20 mile an hour winds or occasionally shoveling the owner out of the driveway.  Thank you for being great builders and genuine people.  You are worth every penny.  We hope that you and your families are blessed because you have blessed our home with a lot of care. Nicole & Jerry Rice, DeRuyter NY
Magazine Articles
Frame Building NEWS November 1997 'Wizard' Crewmen Make the Difference By Rachel Duran, Editorial Assistant
Jeff Smith and the Neal Brothers Have Arrived An old George Strait song goes, "You've got to have an ace-in-the-hole, a secret that nobody knows."  Jeffrey Smith has found his ace-in-the-hole -- make that two aces.  For his 12-year- old post-frame company, the Neal brothers fit this bill.  Smith attributes his company's success to the brothers' contributions as crew members. Floyd Neal came to Jeffrey D. Smith Builders, North Pitcher, N.Y., 11 years ago.  Until that time, Neal was a New York dairy farmer and had built various post-frame structures on the family farm. Herb Neal joined ship four years ago, with a similar post-frame background.  "They are both brilliant with math and are good with laying out and framing buildings," Smith says.  "On complicated roof systems and any type of complicated problem, they are wizards at spitting out numbers and working out the framing details.
Jeff Smith (left), Herb Neal (middle), Floyd Neal (right)
Jeffrey D. Smith Builders is located in central New York.  The company's post-frame niche is light commercial and dairy buildings.  A few years back the company was building a lot of agricultural structures, but the economy has caused his company's emphasis to move toward light commercial post-frame structures. Smith says that even though big business is moving out of the area, the mid-to-small businesses are prospering, which keeps business thriving.  In addition to post-frame structures, the company also builds several residential structures. End-of-summer projects included a machine shop, residential additions, and a 58-ft. x 80-ft. post-frame building for an expanding lumber company.  Recently, the company completed a 96-ft. x 104-ft.  True Value and Agway facility.  The structure features two steel I-beams down the center. "We had two bearing points on out trusses," Smith says.  "Our trusses came in three pieces -- as a mono truss in two halves -- with the piggyback truss at the top to form the peak.  There was a lot of roof framing involved."
Recent projects have included a 60-ft. x 80-ft. truck repair center, during framing (l) and finished.		Smith's post-frame niche is composed of dairy buildings and light commercial structures, like these lumber storage facilities for True Value of Cincinnatus.
Positioning Itself as the Leader Because of the change of the economy in central New York, Smith finds that post-frame contractors are his main source of competition.  "As more and more of the big businesses in our area are shutting down, more and more people are becoming contractors, and things have gotten more competitive, has says.  "There are a lot of people out there undercutting us, because they are willing to work cheap." Even so, Smith's one three-man crew still puts up 20 structures a year, as well as completing multiple building additions. When competition comes into play, Jeffrey D. Smith Builders wins out because of its reputation and quality work.  Smith adds, "Word-of-mouth customers have always praised our crew; that is how we get the majority of our work."  (In addition to word of mouth, the company also advertises in the Yellow Pages and in the local Penny Saver.)  The company works hard to keep its customers happy. In addition, the company offers warranties for labor and honors all of its manufacturer's warranties.  It also works with engineers who understand the post-frame concept, and can satisfy building code officials.  The company found a dependable engineer when it was shut down by a code official mid-project a few years back.  “It was a misunderstanding from one code official to another and our permit was revoked until we had the drawings,” Smith says.  “We had to scramble, because we were already in construction, but we finally found an engineer who came up with a drawing to meet our needs and to help the code officials understand what we were attempting to do.” The company now works with another engineer of equal talents. In New York, the company falls under BOCA codes and New York state building codes.  Smith adds that over the last two years, post-frame has become more accepted by area building code officials. The acceptance issue is minor compared to Smith’s labor struggles prior to the addition of Herb Neal to his crew four years ago. “Over the years we went through various stages of needing more, as well as dependable, help.”  In one year, Smith saw so many employees joining and leaving that he lost count of how many he brought in.  He says problems occurred because employees would come to work late or not at all, because they had been out late the night before. “One fellow even fell asleep at the wheel while driving home and wrecked one of my trucks,” he says.  “Their attitudes were cocky.  They felt I shouldn’t reprimand them for coming in late, or for not showing up at all.” Smith is thankful for the Neals.  He believes that the reason they work as a cohesive unit is because they not only enjoy working together, but because they are friends.  “We do things together, and enjoy turning out a good product.” In addition to his crew, Smith’s wife, Kelly, also lends a hand to the company.  She is the accountant and office manager.  At one time, Smith was performing those duties as his business grew.  “We got bigger a few years ago and had up to 10 people working.  It took me out of the field, because I had to be behind the desk running things here.”  He didn’t like that. “I got into this business because I like to build; I like the hands on.  I don’t like office work.”  Smith says that if growth means sitting behind a desk, he is content not to grow. One of Smith’s other smart decisions has been to incorporate Jeffrey D. Smith Builders.  “We are more protected from a lawsuit, should one come up,” he says.  “We didn’t ever want to face having our home and personal assets at risk.” As long as Jeffrey D. Smith Builders keeps doing what its doing, there is no chance that a lawsuit will spring up.  In regard to the company’s future, Smith says, “Right now we want to do the best possible job for the customer and to always be available when they need us, whether it is for a warranty, or for another project years down the road.  By doing this, we remain in the fore-front of their mind.”
Rural Builder May/June 1993 "Marketing in a Small Town" Ask most rural contractors about their marketing program and they will tell you it’s all done by word-of-mouth.  Any yellow page advertising? Yeah.  Signs on the trucks, names on the hats? Yeah.  Newspaper or magazine ads? Some yeah.  Any cold calling, knocking on doors, direct mail? Nah. One reason why a sophisticated marketing plan may not be necessary is that these builders usually are found working in and around those little pin-point dots on the map; everybody knows who they are and what they do. Smith: "We made one customer happy, and he told his neighbors." Come to think of it, the construction is itself an effective form of advertising in small communities where a new anything is an object of much interest and readily seen by nearly everybody going about their daily business. A good example of what both forms of advertising can do is provided by Jeffrey D. Smith, who builds within a 50-mile radius of his home near North Pitcher, N.Y. Smith and his crew built a decent chunk of nearby Cincinnatus, N.Y. last year, because “we made one customer happy and he told his neighbors,” as Smith tells it. It helped that the second and third customers could watch the activity going on at the first customer’s location.  In any event, when Smith’s company had finished, it had constructed five post-frame buildings for three customers, all within 200 yards of each other. It all started a year ago in April with the first of three 40-ft. x 80-ft. structures built to provide additional material storage for the Cincinnatus True Value Home Center. Meanwhile, Smith had discussed preliminary plans for an additional facility needed by S&D Petroleum, located across the street from the home center.  A concrete block or a post-frame building were being considered, but after watching the progress on the three True Value buildings, the customer elected to use the post-frame idea for its 16-ft. x 22-ft propane storage structure.  “They could see that post-frame was quick,” Smith explains. The job was finished last June. Concurrently, the Cincinnatus Emergency Squad was planning to add a second building to house three of its vehicles.  Its managers and employees also had a ring side seat for the construction under way at the home center across the street and at the petroleum distributor’s location next door.  The emergency squad’s 40-ft. x 80-ft. structure, with its three garage bays, was completed in September. The rescue squad garage, completed in September, was the last of five structures built for three customers in a 200-yard radius. Obviously, erecting buildings for a building material supply center offers an excellent testimonial to a contractor’s work, and the Cincinnatus home center, where Smith’s company buys most of its materials, has provided Smith with numerous referrals.  But he gives most of the credit for referrals to the manner in which he approaches each job, the quality of his end product, and a reasonable price.  “I don’t do much selling,” he says.  “Most of the time people call me.”  Smith doesn’t buy space in the telephone yellow pages, although he does make an effort to establish name recognition and build an image in his community.  He sponsors a bowling team.  Three company trucks, employee shirts, and caps all bear the company name.  Signs are posted at each job. All three storage buildings built for the True Value Home center have a 4-ft. overhang on each side, with the eaves left open for ventilation. But he knows that a fortune in advertising can’t overcome third-class work and sloppy procedures in a small town.  “We strive to give the customer the best possible building we can,” he says, “while keeping the site clean and neat at all times, making sure the crew is polite to the customer, and that our personal appearance is neat.” A builder’s good name is built by completing projects in a timely manner, he says, “not by skipping from job to job, leaving the last job unfinished.  And if we can make a good impression on one customer, that person will tell his neighbor, and maybe we will be asked to build a building for that person.” Smith, who started his business eight years ago, specializes in building whatever it is that someone needs built.  Until 1992, most of those needs involved homes, including several log homes.  When factory closings smothered the residential market, his company found itself specializing in commercial construction. In 1993, a conventional single-family home, a log home, two free-stall dairy barns, and who-knows-what-else are in store.  No, he still doesn’t intend to do any advertising. “For us, word of mouth is the most effective form of advertising that we could have.  And the price is right too.”