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Video: The value of listening



Through its C2C approach, RedStone applies four client-focused steps, ask, listen, think and do, to gain understanding about a project to help better serve its clients.


“I think it’s important first that we seek to understand our clients before we simply seek to be understood,” said Lance Gopffarth, Executive Vice President, RedStone.


He emphasizes the ability to learn more when you listen than when you speak.

“If you’re speaking, you’re not gaining the understanding from your client that you really need in order to serve them properly,” he says.

Lance continually sees new opportunity result from that understanding.


“The opportunity to practice and produce value will come in many different avenues within a project,” he says. “For us, we need to understand the audience. We need to understand how we can bring value to that individual owner and apply our skills to bring value to those jobs.”


RedStone’s Indigo Sky project exemplifies this need. Consultants informed the team of the challenge of inadequate natural gas in the project’s area. Rather than offer an easy answer of propane, the team asked: “What are the possibilities?”  “What if?” They researched and formed the idea for a pipeline to natural gas approximately 13 miles away. Though this required more asking, listening, thinking and doing, it created value for the client.

“Within five years at the current gas prices, [the savings] would pay for the value to bring gas to the facility,” said Lance. “Then every year after that it saved hundreds of thousands of dollars for a facility of that size.”

In total, this alternative would cost more on the frontend but save the owner millions of dollars over the project’s lifespan.


“When you put it all together in that way, it was a great win-win. It took a lot of thinking, a lot of listening, and a lot of work, and some risk, but it was certainly worth it, and the owner is still gaining the value from that.” 


In the following video, Lance discusses the importance of listening and how it has impacted RedStone's work.