We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jennifer Ramos. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jennifer below.

Alright, Jennifer thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

Success is a destination that can be reached by many different roads, but the vehicle that gets you there is continuously going above and beyond the status quo. As a woman in a male dominated field with my own highly successful construction company I have learned that my customers choose Jen Contracting Group for their home remodeling and renovation projects because we simply do more than the average contractor. From beginning to end, our priority is giving our customers the best home improvement experience possible and we are not hesitant to go above and beyond to make it happen.

For example, all construction projects come with their own set of challenges, however, I am always thinking about how I can stay ahead of the challenges so that when they come up, we have a solution to offer our customer that will take the headache off of their plate and become a problem that Jen Contracting already has a plan to solve. Additionally, when we are entering the final phase of a project, we are always inspecting our work with a magnifying glass mindset in order to find any necessary touch ups or fixes before the customer has to bring it up to us. From project organization and management to the project execution, we are intentional about putting in that extra effort to “wow” our customers and provide a seamless experience. Our passion for our work has in turn created customers that become passionate advocates for the business based on positive experiences with us. This is how we have been able to survive as business, and furthermore, grow success as a construction company.

I believe this idea of going above and beyond translates into any industry or goal. The success stories often come from those who consistently go above and beyond the status quo. As the famous saying goes: “Shoot for the moon, and if you don’t make it, at the very least you’ll land amongst the stars!”

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I truly never imagined I would own my own construction company as it is just not a plan I ever set out for my life. I was in my early twenties, a recent college graduate on the law school track when my father was being laid off of his construction job of 20+ years.

I encouraged him to go off on his own as opposed to applying to work somewhere else. This idea did not appeal to him so I proposed that I could go out myself, get him the customers, and he would only be responsible for building those projects out. After some convincing, he agreed. We started doing small kitchen cabinet build outs, and as the demand grew, so did Jen Contracting. I became more focused on growing my knowledge by learning the construction industry ins and outs via construction apprenticeships and crash course MBA-style programs.

I also set out to grow my team so that we could handle the projects that were becoming larger scale all through word of mouth. Eventually, we were taking on both commercial construction projects and residential construction projects in Virginia, Washington D.C.., and Maryland. On the commercial side we handle office, retail, and government interior renovations and remodels. On the residential side, we do all things interiors including kitchens, bathrooms, and basements. We stand-out as a one-stop-shop for all interior construction needs including providing cabinets, tile, paint, and plumbing accessories to all DC Area homeowners, interior designers, and contractors through our design studio called Jen Paint Kitchen & Bath.

While I never saw myself in this space, the more I learned through what I was doing, the more passionate I became about learning all I could about interior construction and business scaling. I grew to love the challenge of growing a successful business, and became obsessed with all things interior design and construction. I ultimately came to the realization that I could not imagine being happy working in any other field, so much so, that I ultimately dropped out of law school to grow Jen Contracting Group full-time. Now, I get to do what I love everyday in helping my customers create beautiful spaces through my construction company and design studio!

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I think when people hear about my journey, it seems somewhat attainable to grow a successful construction company. I would say that while it is possible, it is not at all easy and it takes someone with a resilient and business savvy mindset. I have lost out on projects due to customers going with a contractor that gave a better price when we most needed revenue in order to keep the lights on both personally and company-wise. I had to learn to not give up and get smart financially in moments like those. I have had customers try to not pay after satisfactory job completion leaving me hundreds of thousands in debt after paying my staff and for materials on the project. I had to learn about perfecting contracts and legal strategies to make sure I ultimately got paid. I have lost customers that made up 100% of our revenue. In this instance I had to learn about diversifying my business in order to continue forward. I have had people underestimate me for my age and gender. I had to make sure I showed up overly prepared in those instances. I have walked into rooms where they assumed I was and assistant which taught me the importance of self-confidence so as to not fall victim to imposter syndrome. There were many times where I have wanted to give up my entrepreneurial journey due to things not going my way, however, I made a choice to persist in all of those moments with faith that the best is always yet to come and the mindset that no matter what, I would figure it out.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I once thought that I had to seize every opportunity that came my way. But the truth is, you are not always ready for every opportunity and sometimes, taking the wrong opportunity could be the downfall of everything you have worked so hard to achieve.

A few years after starting Jen Contracting I was contacted to bid a project ten times larger than one we had ever completed. I was determined to land the project because I was excited about the possibility that it would take Jen Contracting to new levels with larger scale projects and prestigious clients. I put all of the company efforts towards securing this job. After months of waiting to hear back about whether my bid was the winning bid, I was informed that the job was awarded to another contractor. When I asked for feedback, the project owner told me my price was considerably lower than most of the bids received and that if I was awarded the job, we would have likely lost a lot of money in completing the job at the price I proposed. I was ultimately glad I lost out on that project as it was clear we were not yet ready for the scale of it. In fact, it would have been a project that hurt my company. This situation taught me to be very strategic, selective, and thoughtful about the projects Jen Contracting takes on. Now it is always my aim to take on projects that I carefully determine we are capable of completing on-budget and on-time.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jencontracting.com
• Instagram: @jencontracting and @jenpaintkitchenbath and @hbicguide
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jencontractingusa/
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferramosaguilar
• Twitter: @jenremodeling
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@jencontracting4332
• Other: TikTok: @JenPaintKitchenBath & @hbicguide