Emma Wildermuth grew up inside the home building industry before she understood what it was. Her parents, Chuck and Emma, started the company that became The Shinn Group back in 1992, but the real story goes further, back to a graduate school accounting class in the 1960s.
They dated by mail for two years while she was in Panama and he was in Washington, DC, and once they landed at the National Association of Home Builders, they discovered something that would shape the rest of their careers. Builders were running successful looking companies with almost no financial structure behind them.
“One of the participants to the study brought a box of checkbooks to Chuck and Emma and said, ‘Here you go. That is my accounting system. I open up a checking account for every home I build, and if there’s money left in the account when I’m done, I won. If I had to put money in the account in order to close the house, well, I guess I didn’t.”
Emma’s mother saw the gap immediately and went on to write the first accounting book for the home building industry and help create its job cost codes.
We spent most of our conversation on a question that trips up a lot of builders: when does this stop being a job and start being a business? Emma has spent her career inside that question, first as a kid hanging around framing crews and tile installers, then in marketing, and eventually back at the family company after her mother made her an offer she couldn’t refuse when her first daughter was born. She now leads The Shinn Group as her parents move into their 80s, carrying forward a management philosophy built specifically for private home builders rather than borrowed from a generic MBA program.
“I believe that home building isn’t about building boxes. It’s about building lives. And so when I walk into a home that’s just framed, I start looking at, okay, this is where the kitchen is gonna be, and this is where somebody’s gonna make their family meals. And this is the family room where the families are gonna sit together and watch movies together or play games together. They’re gonna celebrate holidays and birthdays here. They’re gonna have memorials for loved ones that have passed, and life is gonna happen in this space.”
The conversation kept circling back to margin. Emma’s target for a healthy builder is 10 to 12% net profit, and she walked me through why chasing volume without protecting that number usually backfires.
“Well, as you grow, you’re dealing with more trades, you’re dealing with more homes, you’re dealing with more customers, you’re dealing with more permits, you’re dealing with more red tape.
And so you have to kinda look at it and say, ‘Is it worth it to do that much more work at 8%, or get really good at what I’m doing with the volume that I’m at and make 10 to 12%?’ And the dollar numbers could be the same.
So if you’re building, let’s say, 300 homes at 6 to 8% and you wanna go to 500, you could be building 500 homes at 8% or 300 homes at 10 to 12% and be making the same number of dollars.”
We got into a real example too: a builder who included high end energy features his buyers weren’t actually willing to pay for, and another who stripped his homes down to only what his price sensitive buyers wanted.
“We’d be like, ‘So do you include that?’ ‘Nope, that’s not included. Nope, that’s not included.’ Even to the point where there’s no bathroom mirrors because they’re like, ‘Our buyers don’t care about us putting a mirror in there.
They’re gonna go to Hobby Lobby and buy a cute mirror and put it up themselves. They’re not willing to pay me, the builder, what it costs me to buy that mirror, install it, and include my margin.’
And so they’ve realized their buyer is very price-sensitive, and so they’re building a home that is within the threshold of what their buyer can afford and still build a nice product.”
Emma also opened up about her builder groups, which she describes as the favorite part of her work. These are small peer groups of non-competing builders who typically meet twice a year in person, tour each other’s communities, and stay in close contact between meetings by email and Zoom.
“During COVID, these groups were essential. I kinda call it like group therapy sometimes. It was essential for them to have other builders that were similar in size, similar in vision for where they were going.
Some builder groups are like, ‘We just wanna continue to work on margins.’ Some are like, ‘We wanna do margin and units.’ Some are like, ‘We just are trying to figure it out.’ Some are still immature in their business cycle.
But having that opportunity to talk to people and share their grievances and say, ‘I’m not the only one, and now I know I have somebody else that I can pull your head together with my head and we can solve this problem together.'”
She talked about why she believes in-person learning still matters more than Zoom, drawing on something her son told her about learning from classmates rather than the professor. We also touched on her Managing for Profit, Superintendent, and Production Management classes coming up this fall, her executive summit planned for Florida in April, and the work her team does on succession planning for builders thinking about the next chapter of their companies.
Toward the end, Emma shared a personal dream of hers involving her daughter and a future organization built around the animals she loves.
“I have a passion for dogs. I always have. My daughter and I were talking, she’s gonna be a physical therapist, and we have this idea to come up with a organization called Seniors for Seniors, where we would have a shelter for senior dogs and would be close to a facility where seniors live. And the seniors can come and spend time with dogs.”
It is a nice reminder that behind the profit margins and the coaching frameworks, Emma’s work is still rooted in the same thing her parents built The Shinn Group around: helping people build lives, not just houses.
About Emma Wildermuth
Emma Wildermuth is President of Shinn Group, where she helps private home builders strengthen and grow more profitable businesses. With more than two decades of industry experience, Emma has dedicated her career to advancing the Shinn Group founders’ vision, equipping builders with the leadership, systems, and strategies needed to succeed in a competitive market. She began her journey with the organization in 1999 and has grown from managing seminars and education programs to leading the company and serving the next generation of builders.
As a consultant, executive leadership coach, and facilitator, Emma works closely with building companies to become the “builder of choice” in their markets. She specializes in leadership development, business growth strategy, and implementing proven management systems that drive real results and long-term profitability.
Outside of her professional work, Emma enjoys an active life with her husband, Brian. Together, they have five adult children and three dogs. She loves hiking with her dogs and spending time outdoors. Her greatest joy comes from watching her children pursue their passions, thrive, and build lives they truly love.
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