A great custom home can go wrong long before the first nail is driven.
According to Danielle Yegge, Owner/CEO of Style & Structure, the biggest problems often happen in the handoffs between sales, design, estimating, the field and the customer. When critical information gets lost along the way, the result can be costly: missed details, avoidable change orders, wasted time and frustrated clients.
At the 2027 NAHB International Builders’ Show® (IBS), Danielle will show custom builders how to tighten these handoffs, automate the front end of their processes and use AI where it can make a difference.
Her session, When Great Custom Homes Go Bad: Fix Your Process, Not Your Product, gives builders practical strategies they can put to work immediately.
Meet IBS Education Speaker Danielle Yegge
What actionable takeaways can attendees expect from your session?
Custom homes rarely fail at the craftsmanship. They fail in the handoffs, sales to design and estimating to the field and the customer, where good information goes to die.
I will show you where it happens, what it costs us for real projects and how to automate your front end, so nothing gets dropped, including where AI earns its keep once your process is written down.
You will leave with the audit checklist we run before anything goes to the trades.
What are you most looking forward to at IBS 2027?
The builders.
It is so fun getting to meet builders from all over the country and talk through what is working and what is not. The questions and discussions after my talk last year at IBS 2026 were amazing, and at IBS 2027 I get to address a lot of the questions and issues builders are having.
What advice would you give someone attending the Builders’ Show for the first time?
Pick the two or three problems you want to solve in your business this year and build your schedule around those.
You will not see the whole show, so stop trying. Then go up to the speakers afterward and ask your question. We are standing right there and we came to talk. That is where the show pays for itself.
Comfortable shoes, obviously.
Where is the best place to be at the Builders’ Show? Why?
It is the one place people will tell you what went wrong and what it cost them and that beats any highlight reel.
Then the show floor first thing in the morning.
What is the most interesting industry trend for 2027?
AI in the back office, not the marketing department.
Estimating, scheduling, meeting notes, keeping selections and change orders straight, the paperwork that quietly eats your week.
I have a whole section on where it earns its keep and where it needs to stay out, which is anywhere a client needs to hear from a person.
What changes do you think we’ll see in the next five years?
The gap between companies that run on systems and companies that run on memory is about to get very wide.
Clients already expect the transparency they get everywhere else they spend money, so clear communication stops being a selling point and becomes the price of entry.
What do you think is the biggest challenge in the industry right now?
Affordability, and everyone in the room knows it.
None of us can move interest rates, so the money is sitting in the waste we create ourselves.
Every decision that should have been made in pre-construction, every change order nobody wrote down, comes straight out of the budget and out of the client’s trust.
Get More from IBS 2027
Danielle’s session is one opportunity to find practical answers to the problems affecting your business at IBS 2027, Feb 2–4 in Las Vegas.
Register for an IBS Expo+Education Pass for access to the 1,700+ exhibitors on the Builders’ Show floor and a choice of 120+ IBS Education sessions to help you work smarter, solve real business challenges and bring better ideas back to your business.
And take Danielle’s advice: do not try to see everything. Pick the problems you want to solve, build your schedule around them and make your time at the Builders’ Show count.