Guru Nick and Lynn Show 9-21-25

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
When you need wisdom and advice. Seek out a guru.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
When you need wisdom and advice about remodeling and design.
Lock on and listen right now to Nick the construction Guru.
Here is award winning remodeling expert Nick Kerzner.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
We talk eleven thirty Wisn. Nick the Construction Group here today,
Happy Sunday, Wisconsin. I have my beautiful wife with me
today to talk a little bit about, or continue to
talk a little bit about. Those of you who have
listened have heard us already talk about some of the
pitfalls of dealing with companies that don't have selection experts

(00:42):
and what's going on in the market. And we've had well,
we've had a pretty tough couple of weeks, so I
wanted to let's have a discussion about some of the
some of the challenges that we're facing now Linn that
are I guess, kind of newer to the business. I
think one of the challenges that we face is that

(01:04):
the public has been indoctrinated with the thought that whatever
you order you can get overnight thanks to Amazon. And
I love Amazon, and I know not going to baden
mouth them as far as a company. They're a great company.
But you know, one of the things we talked about
I think a couple of weeks ago is even if
you order something like for me, if I if I

(01:24):
need a motorcycle battery for the weekend and I order
it on Monday and they tell me it's going to
come on Wednesday and it's not there, I'm pissed and
there's no reason to be mad because I don't need
it tell the weekend. But that's kind of how they're
conditioning us to think. I mean, are you finding that.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
True too, Yes, yes, for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
So customers have this expectation sometimes that once they sign
a contract that you know, in a couple of days
someone's going to be their hammering, and that's not the case.

Speaker 4 (01:54):
No, Well, I think you know, we have a process
now that I'm on board, that selections need to be
done before we start any project at all, I mean
before we demo do anything. And the reason being is
because and I've seen this real time since I've started.
I've ordered something from Amazon, it went to the customer's house,
and I always have them look at certain things, like

(02:15):
if it's a mirror, something that could be break broken,
I have them actually open the box, look at it,
inspect it, and then you know, just set it aside
because obviously they're not going to be handling the product.
But I've had a few times where and again it's
not Amazon, it's the vendor. I mean, there's vendors from
all over that they you know, they use the product

(02:35):
wasn't the right color. So luckily we did look at it,
because if we would have waited and maybe it's sat
there for a couple months because the project, you know,
we're doing other things before that actual piece gets installed,
we wouldn't have been able to return it because there's
a timeframe, you know, and then that would have been
another battle. So there has been some challenges with getting
the wrong product and again I think or maybe delays

(03:00):
in product or back orders. I have back order situations
where I find that out after the fact. So this
is why we do the selections the way we do
so we have everything in hand, because if we're in
midstream of a project and then we can't get the
product or it's you know, it was damaged or something
like that, then you know, everything comes to screeching halt

(03:21):
and it's a ripple effect. You know, then the other
people that are doing plumbing and electric. You know that
everything stops. So yeah, in a long story of that,
I have seen challenges with this on demand kind of ordering.
And I think part of the problem too is that
with the Amazons of the world and even some of

(03:43):
the big box stores, because people are expecting things so quickly,
maybe you know, the urgency from the warehouse that can
cause issues too because people are just scrambling to get
their orders fulfilled, and that can create maybe some you
know fall through you know, and again by no fault
of anybody specifically, but you know, you know, when you're rushed,

(04:06):
mistakes can happen. So I think, you know, everybody in
the in the in the world needs to take a
step back and just take a breath, because you know, yes,
everyone wants things today or yesterday. But I think we're
seeing some mistakes happening and you know issues.

Speaker 3 (04:24):
Not only that, but you know what used to be inventory?
Do you know when you had I always go back
to countertops. I think it's one of the best examples.
It used to be you had corey on, you had
for mica, You did have some stone, but that was
mostly for the really wealthy people's stone wasn't now the
way it's fabricated in that you can you know, by volume,
you can you can get better deals on granite and

(04:45):
marble and soap stone and all those kinds of things.
Cabinet tree is another one. You know, you have your
stock cabinets, which I think there's a place for them,
but you know, we use ninety percent custom cabinets and
we go to smaller shops that take more time. I
want to talk to the owner. I don't want to
talk to the HR department when I'm wondering where where
my cabinets are. So all of this when you're looking

(05:09):
at putting together a solid remodeling project that isn't a
cookie cutter project. I mean I think, like you know,
the bathfitters and those, there's a place for those, But
at the end of the day, that all kind of
looks the same. If you want to do truly custom
stuff that represents, you know, the way you want to
esthetically build your home, what's important to you and function

(05:30):
in that, and you're having all these custom things done,
there's a whole bunch of background work that goes on.
I always equate it to a play, you know, when
when that curtain comes down everybody's waiting in fifteen minutes
seems like two hours. But there's a ton of stuff
going on behind the curtain. When we're doing a custom project,

(05:50):
there's a ton of stuff going on behind the curtain,
and people grow wary. And if you don't have all
your selections in place. You know, a lady says to
me that, you mean you're not going to start my
job until I pick out the cabinet handles. No, we're not,
because I don't know if those cabinet handles that you're
picking out are going to fit on that five piece
straw that we're building for your spice cabinets, and I
want to make sure it's going to fit. I got

(06:11):
to know your selection because if you order them and
they get there and now they're sitting in a box
and we're at the end of the job and we
can't put those on because there's not enough room, that's
a problem. You're not going to your job's not going
to be finished. We're not going to be able to
do a substantial completion and give you permission to start
using that kitchen right away. There's all kinds of things
that fall into play, so you know, and people they'll

(06:32):
they'll read with us and they'll understand that at the
time of signing, but then when there's a problem because
they haven't done what they're supposed to do, it becomes
our fault. So we're being we're becoming very hardcore on
that right, I mean, and some people get aggravated with us.
But I think at the end of the job, you know,
they look at it and they go, I'm glad I
had somebody to keep me on track. And the thing

(06:54):
that we were talking about before we started this show,
Lynn was, you know, a lot of companies, I would
say most companies, they'll say, oh, the designer takes care
of that, or all the salesperson takes care of that.
We found it, and we're not a very large company.
I mean we are not. We're a smaller boutique style company.
I say that all the time. We found the need
for you because we need somebody totally dedicated to just

(07:17):
helping people pick their selections. Because they walk into all lows,
they walk into a min ours, they walk into a
floor and de core, they walk into a Ferguson, they're lost.
They need guidance to go through that. So we've actually
dedicated to somebody do that, and I think you're getting
good feedback right from people on this.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yeah, well, I mean yeah, again, I only know what
I know.

Speaker 4 (07:38):
But again, I mean I know that I can tend
to be a little bit hard on people, reminding them
of their budget, reminding them of time, you know, critical time,
the urgency. So I know it may be belaboring. But again,
We've had conversation with the people that I've worked with

(07:58):
where their expectation are all of a sudden, they're like, well,
you know, my neighborhood, there's done, you know, And it's like, okay,
let's let's talk to.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
A professional VP on track.

Speaker 3 (08:08):
Yeah, let's just face it, you really do, because you
will get lost in the minutia of and and and
you know. The other thing I say is, make no
mistake when you walk into some of these beautiful showrooms,
and they are beautiful. You walk into a floor in
the Core, you walk into Ferguson, you walk into uh,
you know, any any of these Gearhart There's all kinds

(08:28):
of them able, all kinds of different showrooms designs. In Marble,
they put the the high margin stuff under the right
lights in the right place because it's kind of like
a jewelry.

Speaker 4 (08:42):
Store, it's like a grocery store that too. Yeah, all
the expensive cereals in the middle shelf. And you know
why because the kids in the car are going to
pick you know, looking on the floor. They're not looking
up pie, They're looking right in that that zone.

Speaker 3 (08:56):
So it's marketing, it's psychological marketing. And and the thing
is is that if you don't have somebody guiding you
through that, the up charges and I've heard it thousands
of times in my business. They had, you know, we
had somebody out building our house. We had somebody out
remodeling our house, and you know, it was change order

(09:16):
after change they gave us a price and then after
the change order ended up being you know, ten, fifteen,
twenty percent over what we had planned on. And that's
really your job is to really isolate where you should
spend more money and where you should spend less money.
And I know that people appreciate that. Most of the
time that works out to stay within bid because you're

(09:38):
dropping the prices on some things. And maybe you have
to have that light fixture or or maybe you have
to have that particular appliance, And I get that. It
happens to us too. We do it all the time.
But where can you save the money? And that's where
I think having a professional with you when you're doing this,
you have the plans in your hand, you can figure out,

(09:58):
you know, like tiles eight one for me, a tile
some of the builders, tiles that are in the back
of the store that you don't ever see. You can
do some beautiful things with that more with an artistic labor,
you know, projection do it. Do it from the standpoint
that maybe you look at this tile and that tile
mixed together, and they don't put it together in the store,

(10:20):
it's not in one of their vignettes, so you don't
think about it. But you can save you know, four
or five dollars a square foot on tile, which makes
a difference.

Speaker 4 (10:27):
Yeah, as long as it's not heavy labor, because then
it offsets it with the labor.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah, look at the whole picture.

Speaker 4 (10:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (10:33):
Well, and that's important too, because I think a lot
of times people will pick a tile. They're thinking, Okay,
a square foot of tile is a square foot of tile,
But if it's if it's you know, if it's a
different shape, if it's in the shape of an urn,
or if it's in the shape of a hour flower
or whatever, that's going to take the tile set or
a good tile setter is going to spend more time

(10:54):
doing that, and a bad tile setter is going to
take away whatever esthetically.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
Pleasing when you picked out way.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
So it's important to have somebody with you when you're
going through these stores. Right. Another thing that I think
is the timing, because people tend to put they think
that they're projects in the queue and they think, Okay,
I can get to that when I get to that,
when I get to this, You're You're pretty tough on
keeping people on task too, and that sometimes gets aggravating

(11:22):
for them too.

Speaker 4 (11:23):
Right, Yeah, because part of my thought process on what
my role was was all the fun part of it,
you know, the design part, you know, picking out beautiful
color combinations and you know, seeing their vision and going
and you know, I kind of live vicariously through them
because I love doing that kind of stuff, arranging different
colors and you know, metals and wood and but the

(11:48):
part of my job that I'm realizing is, you know,
I do have to be a task master, and sometimes
I have to give bad news and talk them off
the ledge on price or you know, all these things,
which it is important, but I wanted to still be
an enjoyable process for them because I feel like my
part of the job should be the fun part, you know,
especially you know, people get excited when they start seeing

(12:08):
their design come together and picking out beautiful, you know, fixtures,
and so you know, part of me is a love
hate because I want them to, you know, enjoy this too.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
Yeah, hey, you know what, let's talk about because I
think I think it's important. We're going to take a
short break, but when we come back, let's talk a
little bit about, you know, what went wrong in the
past and why we felt the need to do this,
because I think it's going to open up some eyes.
So we'll talk about that when we return from these breaks.
On News Talk eleven thirty WISN News Talk eleven thirty

(12:43):
WISN Make the Construction Go. Returning from break, listen, If
you're thinking about a remodeling project, I say it on
every show, and I would be remissified and say it
on this one. You should get two or three opinions.
Always talk to a few remodelers before you make a decision.
And the reason I say that is everybody had different
styles and different communication needs. So you want to interview

(13:04):
several people, make one of those us. We'd love to
come out and talk with you. I personally come out
on every single job interview, So if you're enjoying the show,
you can talk to me. We can talk about a
new recroom, a kitchen, a bathroom. Make no mistake, we
do small jobs too, So if you're looking for like
a small patio or you have a half bath, a cadio.

(13:24):
Lynd just brought up cadio. If you're following our Facebook page,
there's there's a picture of what we call the cadio,
which is kind of cool for pets, and I guess
there's dogg eos too, and there farideos. Who knows.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
You can make whatever.

Speaker 3 (13:37):
You can make whatever. But if you have a custom
project that people are shying away from, we're happy to
do that. I have some very artistic people on my
staff and we enjoy doing challenging projects. In any case,
before we get too long winded, you can reach us
at two six two five six seven twenty five hundred
or on the web at kurznerink dot com at Kursoner.

(13:59):
We will treat home as if it were our own
and one more thing only company in Wisconsin, our industry,
and when the Better Business Bier Torture Award for Ethics
and Integrity three times. If you're just tuning in, I
have my lovely wife and our new selection consultant with
us project consultant. Right, that's what officially says on your card.
Project consultant. Let's talk about job description. What is it

(14:21):
that you do? Because you come in right from the
beginning and you explain the process to the customer. Let's
let's just tell the listeners what exactly you do at Kurzner.

Speaker 4 (14:31):
My first appointment, I go and look at the house.
We usually have a bid set, which is like a plan,
a rendering of what it's going to look like if
there's walls being moved. So I like to get a visual,
you know, kind of feel for the home, depending on
the scope of work. If it's just a bathroom, and
I don't mean it's just like that, but if it's
just a bathroom, I kind of look and say, do

(14:52):
you want this to kind of flow with the remainder
of the house. I kind of get their sense of style.
Our three renderings are sometimes exactly what the customer wants,
or it could be loosely what they want, you know,
from the floor plan. So I kind of get the
feel and then you know they're like, what's their style?
Are they looking for, you know, coastal vibe? Are they
looking for a traditional what color palette? Yeah, and it's

(15:16):
pretty cool. I'm excited because I like that there's different
people want different things because it challenges me too. And
I and again, like I said, I like living very
curiously through people and their designs because it might be
something I'd want to do but I couldn't do in
our home because it just wouldn't fit. So it's kind
of exciting to be able to, you know, reach into
different aesthetics because it just gives me something different and

(15:38):
exciting to research and talk about. So I get the
discussion discussion with the client, and then I explained the
process of selections.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
That's the first thing we do.

Speaker 4 (15:49):
I make a very elaborate spreadsheet where we itemize everything.
And this also helps our production people because it'll be
on the schematics. Everything is got up number, so they
know exactly which light goes where.

Speaker 1 (16:02):
Because in the past, this is.

Speaker 4 (16:03):
Some of the things that we've had issues with not
by anyone's fault, but if there's three lights and there
are different lights, and you know, our guys are pretty smart,
but they may not know this light is particularly to
go here, and then they have to call and ask.
So this is all going to be something that they know.
It just makes production more streamlined, which we learned from
you know.

Speaker 3 (16:22):
Well, And I think one of the challenges was all
of our stuff is digital. So when we talk about renderings,
their virtual renderings, their photograph quality pictures of what the
project's going to look like before even one nails driven.
So you see this and you think you know what
it is, but then you go out with selections. Litake
goes out with the selections and maybe the two pendant
lights over the island are slightly different than what's on

(16:44):
the rendering because the rendering comes from a library and
a computer and you've actually picked something right. So then
you painstakingly go from your spreadsheet and label each thing
on the blueprint and say, okay, at this indication on
this light, number four is going to be model number six, three,
seven in the red blue. So that when our guys

(17:06):
and we just had it happened with the handles. Yeah,
and one yes, where they didn't get the blueprint and
they drilled a handle into a cabinet door because there
were different sizes, right.

Speaker 4 (17:13):
Two sizes of handles. And again we knew better. And
this is you know, this is a learning curve for
us to processes. So yes, it's just gonna it makes
it a lot easier when they're actually doing installations and
and you know that. But so that's kind of what
I do with that portion. And then on the back end,
we have custom cabinet place we go through. We have

(17:37):
a place that we do with the granite or the
you know, solid surfaces.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
I make all those.

Speaker 4 (17:42):
Appointments, coordinate that with the client and with the supplier, yeah,
the vendor. So you know, the back end stuff is
a lot of you know, kind.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
Of uh, what's the word.

Speaker 4 (17:58):
No, I was just saying, I just do a lot
of the back end production part, bring them out and
again then I just kind of help guide them. Luckily,
the people we work with they do have their own
artistic help. So you know, we collaborate with the vision.
You know, we explain and the customer explains what they
want with the cabinet builder. With all the people and
then we all kind of just discuss it. So it's

(18:18):
nice that we can have all these different experience levels
and ideas and then you know, we I think one
of the.

Speaker 3 (18:25):
Things that at least the lion's share of the clientele
out there that's going into a remodeling project, especially for
the first time they get into a store. I've literally,
and I'm not exaggerating, this is the God's on this truth.
I've seen people literally paralyzed standing in these gigantic stores
looking at things like Florin Decor. I love floren Decor.

(18:46):
It's it's got such a great selection, everything's in stock,
on demand, you can pick it up. There's so many
reasons why I like working with Florindocor. And God's honest truth.
They don't pay me to tell you this, but I've
I've had a client literally stand at the front of
the store paralyzed because they couldn't make a decision because
they went out thinking, Okay, I got to pick the

(19:08):
tile for my shower. Well, when you get in there
and you start looking at it and you start realizing
that is this blue going to go with that gray?
Is this burgundy going to go with that brown? Should
I do a marble? Is this going to be too busy?
Having somebody there that can guide you through this is
so important, It really is. And I think so many

(19:29):
companies now because there are so many selections. There are
so many. I talked about countertops early. It used to
be about five different countertops. I would argue that there's
probably five thousand variations of countertops today, and you go
in and it's just it's overwhelming. And if you don't
have somebody keeping you. I equate it all the time
to bowling. If you don't put the bumpers up in

(19:50):
the gutters, you're going to end up in the gutter,
and when you make a bad decision, you have to
pay to replace it. In most cases, with us, we're
going to have all the selections done and ready for you,
and if need be, we can actually transfer those into
your renderings. In some cases, if it becomes you know,
a big deal.

Speaker 4 (20:10):
Where you're hard to visualize it, yeah, some people have
a hard time seeing it without seeing it in real time,
and that is I think a big thing too, because
some people are visual, some people can see it in
visual visual I.

Speaker 3 (20:24):
Think I'm you know what, I say this all the timeline.
I've been in this business my whole life. I can't
take a flat set of the old blueprints and tell
you if it's going to be a nice project or not.
Everything that we do is three D in the computer,
laid out virtual renderings. You know, picture's worth a thousand words,
not it's worth a million words. Because what you see
with us is what you get. And I think that's

(20:45):
so important. And you know, I had I had a
customer asked me the other day, she said, how come
everybody doesn't do this? And and you know the reality
of it is is that many companies, and not just
our business, but in many they are more concerned with
closing the deal than they are with really satisfying the customer.
And I think there's a place for those, those types

(21:06):
of companies, like I said, bathfitter, and those that just
come in, you got three choices, do it, get it done,
it's over with. There's a place for that. Some people
just want to get it done and be done with it.
But if you're trying to design something custom in other words,
if you want to if you're dealing with a smaller
boutique company and you really want to have that the
wedding dress that isn't off the jcpenny shelf, or you know,

(21:27):
the custom suit that for the special time. It's the
same thing with the remodeling project, except that you're going
to be living with that remodeling project a lot longer
than the dress or the suit. So are we for everybody? No,
But I do think that if you're looking for a
very custom project and somebody who's not in a rush
and doesn't need your down payment to make next week's payroll,

(21:49):
we're probably the company to deal with because we've been
around since sixty six. We're slow, we're methodical in what
we do. If it's what do, we always say you
have three choices. It's price, quality, quality, or timing. You
can only pick two. So you know, the reason we're
having this show today is because we are experiencing some

(22:12):
frustration in the field with customers who really want to
take I always say, you know, Burger King, you can
have it your way. Kurzner is more like Sarah Lee.
This is what you get and if you don't like it,
go to Entemens. Because we've learned over the past fifty
over fifty years, what works and what doesn't and what's keeps.
I don't think anybody's happy going through a remodeling project.

(22:33):
It is a nightmare, right, it's dusty, messy. I don't
care if they get it done in two days. It
took too long. It's always a challenge because you think
that oh, I get to go ahead and pick my countertops,
or I get to go and pick my handles. Well,
guess what. You've got to still cut the grass, take
the kids to school, do everything you have to do
at home, and then you've got to take when you
go out there. It's two or three hours for each

(22:53):
product that you're looking at. It is a nightmare, and
you need somebody to be able to talk you off
the ledge and take to the right places up front.
I know that you're going to take certain people to
certain showrooms based on what you've determined that their aesthetic
style is.

Speaker 1 (23:10):
Right in their price point.

Speaker 4 (23:12):
I mean not everyone wants to go to a showroom
where they you know, the minimum faucet it's one thousand dollars.
Now they're beautiful, but you can find very beautiful faucets
for much less. And again, you know, there's some things
that I wouldn't bargain with the dollar amount. There's certain
things that you just have to spend some maybe more

(23:33):
money than you think because in the long run, right, well,
and you get what you pay for is kind of
a true statement in a lot of stuff.

Speaker 3 (23:40):
And again it's you don't always get what you pay for,
but you never get what you don't pay for.

Speaker 4 (23:45):
Well true, okay, yeah, yeah, and you know again some
things it's not as important. And again maybe you know,
maybe this house is just a temporary fix. You know,
you're just doing it. Again, there's so many things that
determine what you're going to spend on things. But that's
where then we.

Speaker 3 (24:01):
Work with different budgets. So I know that when people call,
I got to hurry up here we're running upgainst the clock.
But I know when people call sometimes you know the
person on the other side of the phone. And so
we don't do bathrooms f under sixty grand, or we
don't do this. We don't look at we'll come and
look at anything. If you just need to repair, we'll
come and look at it and we'll guide you through it.
We're happy to do that. So we never forget where
we came from or who we serve. So again, if

(24:24):
you're thinking about a modeling project. If us a call,
check us out at kurznerink dot com and you can
see what's going on there. If you need to, you
can call and talk with me or my father about
your potential project, and we'd love to have you take
a look at us. Lynn, thanks for coming on the
show today. It's always a pleasure to have you here.
The other nice thing is we can take one car,

(24:45):
so it always works well. So thank you.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
You're welcome.

Speaker 3 (24:48):
All Right, News Talk eleven thirty Wisen. We will return
again next week