How Ogburn Concrete Leveling Grew From a Mom-and-Pop Contractor Into a Multi-Service Company
Stephen Ogburn, General Manager and Vice President ·Ogburn Concrete Leveling and Resurfacing · Oilville, VA
Built Local Podcast with Clay Lawrence · · 30 min episode
The short version
Ogburn Concrete Leveling and Resurfacing is a Virginia family business that started in 1988 as a general contractor and moved into concrete repair about eight years ago. General manager Stephen Ogburn explains how that shift turned a mom-and-pop shop into a growing company, why trying to scale too fast nearly killed it, and how better accounting and EOS steadied it. After about two months with Review Harvest, each of its two Google profiles had gained roughly 30 to 50 reviews, and he says organic leads rise when reviews do.
What other owners can take from Ogburn Concrete Leveling and Resurfacing
- 1
A focused service can be easier to grow than general contracting. Concrete repair took Ogburn from a small business to a growing one pretty quickly.
- 2
Rebuild the website first, then stay on top of your Google Business Profile and reviews before adding paid channels.
- 3
Communicate to the point where it is just a little annoying. A customer who is caught by surprise is far more annoyed than one who heard from you too often.
- 4
Own the gray areas. When it is unclear whose problem something is, the business is far more able to fix it than the homeowner.
- 5
Add a service where it fills a real gap. Ogburn added crawl space and waterproofing so the phone rings when it rains and concrete crews cannot work.
- 6
Start a new service with an underused crew or trusted contract labor, then train a dedicated crew into existence.
- 7
Do not scale until you can manage to a budget. Pay for clear financials: accrual accounting and job costing.
How did a family general contractor become Ogburn Concrete Leveling and Resurfacing?
Ogburn started in 1988 as a small general contractor in Virginia, building homes and additions. Stephen Ogburn was on his father’s job sites as soon as he could hold a hammer. He left to manage restaurants and tend bar, and came back when his dad offered to pay him more than he was making.
About eight years ago, father and son were both unsure they wanted to keep going down the general contracting path: long projects inside people’s homes, subcontractors, permits. “We were good at it, but it is taxing and hard to make money,” Stephen said. Then a cold call offered them a way into concrete repair. They said no thanks, and a week later decided to look into it.
Their Class A license carried over, and they had worked alongside concrete contractors for years. Concrete repair still turned out to be a different industry from pouring concrete, and Stephen credits good mentors for the early learning. The business went from relatively small to growing “pretty quickly.”
How did the marketing change when Ogburn moved into concrete repair?
It went from about $10,000 a year to 8 to 12 percent of the total budget. As a general contractor, the company had a website and relied on Angie’s List and HomeAdvisor. Concrete repair needed thousands of leads a year instead of a few hundred.
The order Stephen described:
- Rebuild the website. He called it step number one.
- Get on top of the Google Business Profile and reviews. After 25 to 30 years, the company had maybe 30 to 40 reviews in total.
- Add pay-per-click, organic search work, Facebook and Instagram.
Nearly 30 years of local reputation was a leg up, but he said concrete repair “is really about educating a market.” Ogburn does that with time-lapse photos from jobs and a steady flow of useful content on its website. “If you’re not always producing high-value content, you become irrelevant pretty quickly,” he said.
It was not a straight line. When Meta changed some things, leads plummeted. The company has since moved to a marketing agency that is more aligned with its goals, and leads are turning into sales again.
How does concrete leveling work?
Crews drill holes and inject a two-part polyurethane foam that expands under the slab and lifts it. The foam is hydrophobic and spreads at a predictable rate, so the crew knows how far it will go and how much it will lift. “It’s kind of like magic,” Stephen said. Ogburn has lifted a fireplace and chimney in the middle of a house, and slabs with cars still parked on them.
Most of the selling is education. Homeowners often do not know they carry the liability for a dangerous sidewalk, or that concrete sloping toward the house is slowly sending water at the foundation.
How does Ogburn keep customers happy on concrete jobs?
By communicating more than seems necessary and by owning the gray areas. Everyone on staff is taught to communicate “to the point where it’s just a little annoying.” Stephen’s reasoning: “The worst thing they could say about us is that we’re annoying.” A customer who is surprised by a crew showing up is far more annoyed.
The second habit is how the company handles problems that are not clearly anyone’s fault. A business has much more ability to solve a gray-area problem than a homeowner does, he said, so Ogburn tries to take it on and to show compassion while doing it.
When should a concrete company add a new service?
When it fills a gap for customers or for the business. Ogburn now pours concrete and does drainage, crawl space and waterproofing work alongside leveling and resurfacing, because the problems are connected and the goal is “an actual solution to a problem, not a band-aid.” It also installs Vuba Stone, a crushed marble overlay, and is adding a rubber surfacing product in 2026.
Crawl space and waterproofing solved an internal problem too. Rain shuts down concrete work, so the company wanted a service “where the phone rings when it rains.”
The hard part is the install team, not sales. Stephen looks for an underused crew that can cover both services for a while, or brings in independent contractors the company trusts for a year or two, always with an Ogburn representative on site.
What nearly killed the business, and what fixed it?
Scaling too fast. “We tried to scale a little too fast. It nearly killed us,” Stephen said. The lesson was to manage to a budget, “not just hoping.”
Two fixes made the difference:
- Real financials. For a long time the books were not on accrual and did not show what the company made each month or on each job. An in-house accountant was more than it could afford, so it found a less expensive way to get clear reporting. “We would be lost without it,” he said.
- An operating structure. Ogburn runs on EOS, with regular leadership meetings and clear communication through the company, so people feel they have a future there.
In Stephen's words
“Scaling too quickly on anything or adding new services is pretty dangerous if you're not at a point where you can protect your bottom line.”
“We try to communicate basically to the point where it's just a little annoying.”
“It just made sense to add a service where the phone rings when it rains.”
“We would be lost without it. We probably would have gone out of business, to be honest.”
Review Harvest Client
What Ogburn Concrete Leveling and Resurfacing says about Review Harvest
Ogburn had earlier worked with a company that specialized in customer surveys, which Stephen says was great for internal information but was not helping the business grow. About two months after connecting with Review Harvest through a mutual friend, each of its two Google profiles had gained roughly 30 to 50 reviews. He praises how simple the setup was and what the experience looks like on the customer's side, and says the effect shows up in the numbers he tracks each month: when reviews go up, organic leads booked go up.
“Direct impact to our organic leads booked. When the reviews go up, we get more leads.”
Questions this episode answers
How does concrete leveling work?
Stephen Ogburn of Ogburn Concrete Leveling and Resurfacing explains that crews drill holes in the slab and inject a two-part polyurethane foam with a gun. The two liquids mix at the point of injection, expand, and lift the concrete. The foam is hydrophobic, so it pushes water out of the way, and it spreads at a predictable rate, so the crew knows how far it will travel and how much it can lift.
Why did Ogburn move from general contracting to concrete repair?
The family business had built homes and additions since 1988, but Stephen Ogburn says general contracting meant long projects inside people's homes, many subcontractors and permits, and it was hard to make money. About eight years ago a cold call offered a way into concrete repair. He and his father first said no, reconsidered a week later, and the company went from a relatively small business to a growing one pretty quickly.
Do Google reviews bring in more leads for a concrete company?
Stephen Ogburn says yes. Ogburn Concrete Leveling and Resurfacing tracks it every month, and he describes a direct impact on organic leads booked: when the reviews go up, the company gets more leads. After about two months with Review Harvest, each of its two Google profiles had gained roughly 30 to 50 reviews.
When should a home service business add a new service?
Ogburn looks for gaps in what customers need and in its own schedule. Crawl space and waterproofing were added because rain stops concrete work, so it made sense to offer something where the phone rings when it rains. Stephen Ogburn says the hard part is the install team, so he starts with an underused crew or trusted independent contractors, and warns against adding services before you can protect your bottom line.
What is Stephen Ogburn's advice for a contractor trying to grow?
Two things. First, invest in clear financials: Ogburn struggled for years without accrual accounting or job costing, and he says the company probably would have gone out of business without fixing that. Second, use a structure such as EOS, with regular leadership meetings and clear, kind communication through the whole company.
Need concrete in Oilville? Visit Ogburn Concrete Leveling and Resurfacing at ogburnco.com.
