Better Before Bigger: Manuel Builders Earns the 2025 National Housing Quality Award
This article first appeared in the January/February 2025 issue of Pro Builder.
Even when you know you’re good, it’s nice to hear someone else acknowledge it. And while that’s not the mission of the National Housing Quality Award (NHQA), which evaluates home builders’ operational excellence, the program’s examiners heaped praise on Manuel Builders for its business acumen—enough to bestow a Bronze award on the Louisiana-based home builder.
Most notably, the NHQA examiners commended Manuel’s “exceptionally strong organizational culture” and identified it as “a learning organization with the potential to become an industry leader,” a culture diligently cultivated since the company’s founding in 1963.
“Public builders that have infiltrated the area will find it difficult to compete against them,” one examiner said.
Specs: Manuel Builders
Founded: 1963 (renamed in 1984)
Locations: Lafayette, La. (headquarters); Baton Rouge and Lake Charles, La.; Houston (division)
2023 Closings: 301
Projected Closings: (2024: 304; 2025: 389)
2023 Revenue: $88,520,292
Projected Revenue: (2024: $90,462,991; 2025: $118,751,222)
Markets: Entry level, first move-up, on-your-lot, production, and custom
Full-time employees: 89
Strengths
- Leadership
- Customer satisfaction
- Human resources
- Business results
Another of Manuel Builders' operational strengths is the builder’s leadership development. NHQA examiners noted that the company is committed to learning and improving while developing leaders and potential leaders throughout the organization.
The builder’s new-hire onboarding process, for example, includes personality profiling to gauge how new team members are likely to behave in certain situations. The process also prioritizes their communication preferences, which provides a baseline for managers to craft performance goals with and for their direct reports.
Those goals involve both technical and soft skills. And while improving technical skills can be straightforward (such as taking a course on project estimating), improving soft skills (such as coaching a leader to be more comfortable initiating tough conversations), isn’t as easily measurable.
A Road Map to a Better Home Building Business
Although many aspects of Manuel Builders’ operation deserve praise, the NHQA examination team also noted plenty of room for improvement, and the company’s leadership is eager to act on those critical observations.
“The feedback report that we received from the examination process is already proving to be an invaluable guide and compass for our future growth,” says company co-founder Missy Manuel. “We are fully committed to implementing those insights.”
One of the most significant revelations was the lack of a clearly documented and cohesive strategic plan. Manuel Builders does conduct strategic planning annually, but “our approach was scattered across various formats rather than consolidated into one clear, actionable document,” Missy says.
“Public builders that have infiltrated the area will find it difficult to compete against them.” —NHQA Examiner
Additionally, the NHQA process shed light on the builder’s tendency to collect a wealth of data, only to fall short in using it to identify key priorities and then fully act on them.
NHQA examiners also identified construction quality as an area for improvement, leading Manuel to sharpen its definition of that metric, namely achieving 100% completion with zero punch list items. Managers also will diagnose quality deficiencies to determine root causes and delve deeper into warranty performance to better track those costs per home.
A related area for improvement was the builder’s relationship with its trade partners and the importance of creating simple, portable messaging that effectively communicates Manuel’s goals and strategies at all levels of the organization, both externally and internally.
“It became apparent that the further out you went in the organization, the more there was vision leak,” CEO Tim Guilbeau says.
To rectify that, Manuel is forming a council composed of key trade partners that will meet regularly with internal managers. Discussion topics will include customer feedback, quality assurance, and jobsite safety. The builder also will develop a periodic e-newsletter for trade partners to reinforce key points.
On the issue of jobsite safety, specifically, Guilbeau says the company will be more proactive in monitoring safety and will conduct more thorough visual inspections and promptly address deficiencies.
Business Expansion: Learning From Experience
After opening a new division in Houston in 2021—an expansion led by Marie Watkins, previously the operations manager of Manuel’s on-your-lot segment—the company now has designs on neighboring Alabama as well.
Lessons learned from the Houston expansion, such as analyzing materials and trade labor costs in detail, will provide a road map for Manuel to expand its geographical footprint, Guilbeau says, “but we’re digging even deeper now.”
The company aims to establish relationships with trade partners sooner, “and we want to better understand what the market wants earlier in the process,” says Guilbeau, who has engaged a market research firm to help the builder hone its customer profiles, refine its product, and target locations for expansion.
NHQA and the Benefits of Continuous Improvement
The NHQA experience, from the application process to the examination and resulting judges’ analysis, has spurred Manuel Builders’ initiatives to enhance quality throughout the business. And Manuel will continue to use the NHQA process in years to come.
“We believe feedback is essential for growth. Participating in the NHQA program was an incredible honor and transformative experience for our company,” Missy says. “Having outside experts thoroughly examine our business brought fresh perspectives and highlighted areas we may have overlooked or given insufficient attention.”
And earning NHQA Bronze this year is only the beginning. “Our goal is to get to Gold level,” Guilbeau says.
Remembering Manuel Builders' Co-Owner Greg Manuel
While Manuel Builders was working its way through the NHQA process, the company suffered a tragic blow when co-owner Greg Manuel, 73, lost his life in a plane crash. The tragedy was difficult to endure, as Greg, son of the company’s founder, had an outsized presence in the organization.
“He was bold, unafraid of taking risks, and always punched above his weight in any room he entered,” CEO Tim Guilbeau said in Manuel’s eulogy. “Whether it was a meeting with industry leaders or a casual gathering of friends, Greg had a presence that was hard to miss.”
Greg’s passing has had a more emotional than operational impact on the business. “We greatly miss his presence,” says co-owner Missy Manuel, Greg’s widow. “The day-to-day operations were already functioning with minimal direct involvement from him, thanks to the strong teams we’ve built over time. Their dedication and support have been an incredible blessing during this period.”
Even so, Missy’s role has changed significantly in the aftermath, with an increased sense of responsibility for all of the companies under the Manuel Companies umbrella, including a commercial division and a custom millwork operation.
“I’ve had to step away from some meetings and daily tasks and shift my focus toward fostering relationships within the community and providing stronger leadership across the entire operation,” she says. “But it also allowed me to more fully empower our leadership team to fill the gaps, and they are more than capable of rising to the challenge.”
Greg Manuel took over his father’s business in 1984 and grew it into a Top 200 (formerly Pro Builder Housing Giants) builder by always striving to do right by customers and the communities the company serves.
“... Greg coined the phrase, ‘Better before Bigger’, as a reminder ... that doing things right is the only way to do them.” —Tim Guilbeau, CEO
“He wanted to ensure that we always left a mark and did things with integrity and excellence,” Guilbeau says. “Recently, Greg coined the phrase, ‘Better Before Bigger,’ as a reminder to us all that doing things right is the only way to do them.”
Missy adds, “His long-standing connections and natural ability to foster opportunities, particularly for commercial projects, were invaluable. We are focused on continuing to strengthen those relationships and cultivate new ones.”
Greg Manuel also made his mark by developing employees. “He left a rich legacy that can be seen in those who started their careers with him and moved on to follow their dreams,” Guilbeau says. “His faith became the foundation for him, and he shifted his focus from personal ambition to something much greater: an ambition for people to develop spiritually. Greg’s life was no longer just about building homes, it was about building people, investing in their growth, and helping them see the potential they didn’t even know they had.”