How Green Shield Deck Builders Created a Drawing-to-Deal Machine with ArcSite

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The Impact

• One-Visit Closes: The price on the screen is the final price. Customers see exactly what they’re paying for and can sign off immediately.
• Protecting Margins: With costs tied directly to the drawing, Green Shield protects its profitability and can confidently stand behind its lifetime warranty.
• A Confident Sales Team: Designers sell the vision, not the math. ArcSite handles the complex calculations, letting the team focus on the customer.
• Winning the First Impression: A professional, interactive site plan created in minutes sets them apart from any competitor with a clipboard.

Overview

Your deck might be one of your favorite parts of your home. A place to take a quiet moment in the morning and savor a cup of coffee. The place where you watch your kids run through the sprinklers. The place where you share meals with your family. It’s more than just a place; it’s where memories are made. 

For Green Shield Deck Builders, that idea is a part of the company’s soul. Founded in 2018 by Adam Rought, the business has personal roots. Adam was building a home (with the help of his dad) for his family. In the process, he fell in love with the craft of building composite decks. 

What started as a father-son project quickly became one of the fastest-growing deck companies in Michigan. They’ve scaled from a 10-person operation to over 170 dedicated team members in just four years. Green Shielders are driven by a simple philosophy: keep quality high and processes simple. 

The company focuses exclusively on composite deck construction and maintains all work in-house to ensure consistency. They source premium materials that set them apart from typical builders. 

By offering free deck inspections and designs upfront, Green Shield builds customer confidence before a single board is installed, a commitment to service that has fueled their rapid growth and reputation for excellence.

‍The Challenge

With over 3,500 projects completed, the real hurdle was the sales process. Homeowners were terrified of surprise costs, and the old paper-based system wasn't building trust.

They traded clipboards and price books for ArcSite, creating a seamless line from the initial drawing to the final contract price. No guesswork. No anxiety.

"ArcSite eliminates surprises," says Adam Rought, Founder of Green Shield. "When we give you a price, it's the right price. The tool proves it on the spot."

Even for a market leader, a manual sales process costs them time and trust.

• Showing up with graph paper feels amateur, not professional.
• Designers spent 30 minutes after every meeting manually calculating costs from a price book.
• Quoting by square footage is a race to the bottom. It overcharges for simple work and undercuts complex, profitable jobs.
• Homeowners waited days for a formal quote, giving them time to look elsewhere.

The Solution

Green Shield integrated their entire material and labor pricing library directly into ArcSite. Now, as a designer draws a deck layout on their iPad—adding stairs, railings, composite boards, and custom features—ArcSite automatically calculates the final contract price in real-time.

"The original intent was just for the drawing piece, and it's kind of turned into also the pricing," Adam says. "We're moving into the ability to present an estimate in the software, and we're just scratching the surface."

The field conditions in Michigan don't make sales easy. Rain, snow, dogs jumping on designers, measuring alone in difficult conditions—all of it made the old process even harder.

ArcSite eliminated those friction points by turning the iPad into a complete sales tool that works in any weather."If you want to be the best in your industry, you should be using the best tools," Adam reflects. "If you can provide your customer with more accurate drawings and more professional drawings, it would be a no-brainer."

The Results

Green Shield integrated their entire material and labor library into ArcSite. Now, as a designer draws on their iPad, ArcSite provides the takeoffs and calculates the final price in real-time. 

By adopting a "Drawing-to-Deal" process, Green Shield built a more predictable and profitable business.