Success Story: Lisa Benjamin, Founder of Millenium II Enterprise

After launching her business in 2007, Lisa Benjamin designed curriculum based on her 10+ years of experience in the contractor industry and partnered with Elevate to teach an 8-week course for emerging general contractors.  

Benjamin first connected with Elevate about four years ago, completed Elevate’s Contractor Accelerator program in 2022, and has stayed in touch since.  

“I’ve really appreciated my relationship with Elevate over the years,” Benjamin said. “Working with Elevate helped me enhance my vision. When you’re doing things on your own, and you’ve been successful, you have a tendency to start to relax. Elevate helped me put a new spin on things. Working with Elevate has allowed me to make my business practices tighter and more polished.” 

Benjamin’s business idea stemmed from flipping houses with her husband, where they realized they could perform much of the work they had previously hired out. Over time, she has grown her business by building a strong team of reliable general contractors. 

“People think this is a man’s job, but I don’t see it that way. I just see this work as gathering information,” Benjamin explained. “If you create the right team, you can move mountains with it. My passion is for beauty— taking something that’s in a terrible state when you first look at it and creating beauty and safety from that.” 

A passion for “making things beautiful” is what drives Benjamin, but she said she wants her business to encompass more than just completing construction projects. She strives to be a resource for other contractors and share the information she wished she knew when she was starting out.  

“I want to take my business as far as I can go,” Benjamin described. “I want to be able to make an impact, like I did with this eight-week class. I want to be the person that people know they can call when they have questions or need support with their businesses.” 

“I don’t want Millenium II to just be a construction company. I want it to be a way to share information,” Benjamin said.  

During Elevate’s 2025 General Contractor Training, Benjamin taught lessons on the real-world applications of project planning, cost estimating, financial management, and safety protocols that all aligned with industry standards. Benjamin strategically developed each module to reflect the dynamic challenges faced by modern general contractors.  

“A lot of times, people are told to just go get their license, and they do, but they still don’t know anything about all the different certifications you can get, or how to specialize in something, or all the products available to contractors,” Benjamin described.  

Over the course of 8 weeks, the 14 participants met twice weekly to engage in hands-on learning, practical exercises, and collaborative problem-solving that prepared them for the complexities of managing multi-phase projects within a regulated environment.  

Throughout the course, Benjamin invited seasoned contractors who’d been in the business for decades to share their experiences and talk about the benefits and challenges of the industry. 

“That gave the students a broader vision of what it means to be a contractor because no one knows everything that general contracting entails when you’re just starting out,” Benjamin said. “People assume they have to do all of the physical work themselves, but that’s not true, you can build a reliable team overtime and grow from there.” 

All 14 participants graduated from the course and successfully passed the final examination, demonstrating measurable growth in both their technical abilities and leadership potential.  

“The most rewarding part of leading the course is seeing that all the participants feel relieved by the end,” Benjamin said. “Many of them told me they’d been introduced to so many people who didn’t want to train them or let them in on the tricks of the trade. We just gave them everything we knew, and if we didn’t know, we’d bring in people at different levels who could broaden their horizons and open their understanding.”  

To learn more about Millenium II Enterprise, visit its website. Connect with Elevate by following us on Instagram,  Facebook,  X, and LinkedIn. Send us a message through Instagram or Facebook or call us at (773) 269-4037.