Articles
Articles by Carolina Baffigo
Your Rep Knows Every Architect But Not One Superintendent
Your rep can name every architect in the city and not one superintendent. That's a…
Read the article →- Sep 16, 2026 · Industry & Market Intelligence
Why Every Construction Professional Should Sit Through a Deposition
Have you ever been named in a lawsuit, or sat through a deposition? Corey Zussman…
Read → - Sep 14, 2026 · Industry & Market Intelligence
70% of Subcontractor Defaults Are Decided Before a Shovel Hits the Ground
70% of subcontractor defaults are decided before a shovel hits the ground. That number comes…
Read → - Sep 14, 2026 · Leadership & People
The Quality Manager Preps Harder Than You
The quality manager on your job site preps harder than your average rep. I asked…
Read → - Sep 8, 2026
27 Years of Career Education: Why I Started Spec to Scale
I walked onto my first job site at 24 with an engineering degree but no…
Read → - Sep 1, 2026 · Sales & Go-to-Market
Job Site Secrets: Five Weeks of Live Training for Building Products Sales
Enrollment for Job Site Secrets closes tonight at midnight. Five Thursdays, live, starting September 3.…
Read → - Aug 26, 2026 · Industry & Market Intelligence
Coca-Cola Mapped Every Square Kilometer of Earth's Water Risk, Then Gave It Away
Coca-Cola built a water risk model covering every square kilometer on Earth. Then gave it…
Read → - Jul 14, 2026 · Sales & Go-to-Market
How to Develop Sales Intuition Using the Scientific Method
My first boss in sales could tell in about ten seconds whether a project was…
Read → - Jun 30, 2026
How Category Leaders Unkowingly Defund Their Own Future
Most building products are designed to last decades. The companies that make them are rewarded…
Read → - Jun 18, 2026 · Industry & Market Intelligence
Spec vs. Street: The Product Positioning Matrix That Determines Your Pipeline Strategy
I watched a rep try to sell $400/SF façade panels to an installer at a…
Read → - May 23, 2026 · Leadership & People
The Underperformance Contagion: Why Good Teams Rot Around Strong Managers
Performance management systems were not designed to protect your team. They were designed to protect…
Read → - May 14, 2026 · Industry & Market Intelligence
6 AI Tools in 1 Day, No Developer
This past Tuesday I walked into a room and understood why the format worked before…
Read →Best Post - May 11, 2026 · Industry & Market Intelligence
The New Edge Isn’t Coding. It’s Domain Mastery.
And that is good news! I detested programming in college (what we called it back…
Read → - Apr 30, 2026 · Industry & Market Intelligence
This Construction Safety Event Saved Lives
I am convinced this event saved an untold number of lives. I am humbled at…
Read → - Apr 22, 2026 · Product & Profit Strategy
When Your Moat Becomes a Trap: What Nearly Two Decades in Building Products Taught Me About the Advantages that Quietly Become Liabilities
Every building product company I've worked for and with wanted the same thing. A moat.…
Read →Best Post - Apr 14, 2026 · Sales & Go-to-Market
The Stakeholder Most BPM Sales Teams Underestimate
There's one stakeholder most BPM sales teams underestimate. And it's the only one that can…
Read → - Mar 20, 2026 · Leadership & People
Commanding the Room: Five Women Rewriting What a “Man’s World” Looks Like
Originally published on my LinkedIn on March 8, 2026. When my daughter, Kika Drake ,…
Read →Best Post - Mar 6, 2026 · Industry & Market Intelligence
When AI Cuts Jobs But We Still Need to Build
We're laying off 40% of our workforce and trading up "for intelligence tools." What happens…
Read → - Feb 10, 2026 · Product & Profit Strategy
Coherence: The Free Leverage That Removes Friction From Growth
Coherence. If you need a word of the year to grow faster, skip the trite…
Read → - Jan 16, 2026 · Sales & Go-to-Market
Free Strategy Sessions: Unlock Revenue Growth
Most building products sales teams don’t lose deals because of price. They lose them because…
Read → - Jan 13, 2026 · Leadership & People
What Real Leadership Looks Like Beyond the Generic Advice
I was 24 when my boss gave me a project I had absolutely no idea…
Read →Best Post - Dec 1, 2025 · Industry & Market Intelligence
How Subs Get Blindsided: Contract Risk & Jobsite Secrets (with attorney Megan Shapiro)
I had a great time with Megan Shapiro on the Build Perspective Podcast talking Construction…
Read → - Nov 15, 2025 · Sales & Go-to-Market
Speed to Cash: Why Job Sites Beat Offices Every Time
“Speed to Cash” was the phrase of the day for this latest episode of Build…
Read → - Nov 8, 2025 · Sales & Go-to-Market
How a Sales Representative Made $215K With No Fancy System
$215,870. This was sent to me today and I needed to share. $215,870 is what…
Read → - Nov 2, 2025 · Sales & Go-to-Market
Why Project Fluency Matters
The gap between a good building products sales rep and a great one is not…
Read → - Nov 2, 2025 · Sales & Go-to-Market
The Scariest Email in Sales
“Can you explain how you are going to close an additional $200K in Q4, when…
Read →Best Post - Oct 22, 2025 · Industry & Market Intelligence
Reshoring vs. Global Manufacturing: A Clear-Cut Answer
Remember Long Beach in 2021? I certainly do. 97 ships sitting idle in the harbor,…
Read → - Oct 18, 2025 · Leadership & People
Are You Stuck in an Echo Chamber?
We often get stuck in our own ecosystem. We specify the same products and call…
Read → - Oct 15, 2025 · Industry & Market Intelligence
Data Center Blind Spots
In late 2023, a wave of data center projects began to flood the industry's pipeline.…
Read → - Oct 3, 2025 · Product & Profit Strategy
Your Invisible Profit Killer
What if 3mm is the only thing standing between a loss leader and a wildly…
Read → - Sep 17, 2025 · Industry & Market Intelligence
AI Job Site Referee: The Future of Construction Conflict Resolution
What if construction conflicts could be resolved as smoothly as modern co-parenting disputes? A new…
Read → - Sep 15, 2025 · Industry & Market Intelligence
Construction's Electric Revolution Just Hit Germany
The construction industry just witnessed its Tesla moment. In Erlangen, Germany, Volvo, Siemens, and Metzner…
Read → - Aug 26, 2025 · Industry & Market Intelligence
Hurricane Andrew: The Storm That Built Modern Safety Standards
33 years ago today, I was a 17-year-old kid watching windows "leak" water through solid…
Read →Best Post - Aug 23, 2025 · Leadership & People
How to Handle Job Cuts Honestly
Silicon Valley loves to rebrand harsh realities with softer language. We "sunset" ideas, projects, and…
Read → - Apr 15, 2025 · Sales & Go-to-Market
From Technical to Sales: A Lesson in Professional Kindness
Moving from technical roles into sales brought unexpected challenges, but one person's kindness made all…
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