Scaling Smart | Annemarie Diaz of TRS Build

Meet Annemarie Diaz, co-owner of TRS Build in Cedar Park, TX. In this episode, Diaz opens up about the strategies that have helped her build a thriving remodeling business powered by 80% referral work. From creating a culture where it’s okay to fail to scaling her team while also protecting the company, Diaz shares her approach to leadership, business best practices, and long-term success. She also dives into how she implements new technology, keeps her cost per lead in check, and co-leads her business alongside her husband with clarity and collaboration.

In this episode, you will learn:

• The most significant KPI Diaz relies on for measuring leadership success

• How to scale your team while protecting your business

• The top client red flag to watch out for and when to say no to a project

• Strategies for controlling cost per lead

• Tips for implementing new technology

• Where Diaz focuses her marketing dollars  

Learn more about TRS Build here.

Own a construction company and want to share your story? Apply to be on an upcoming episode of Builder Stories at https://www.builderstories.com

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
... welcome to the podcast where we take a deepdive into the stories behind construction business
leaders. We will share how they got started, howthey found success, and the lessons
learned along the way. I'm your host, EricFortenberry.
Welcome to Builder Stories.
Welcome back, everybody. Today, I am here with AnnMarie Diaz, who is the

(00:23):
co-owner of TRS Build. They are located in Austin,Texas.
You know, always excited to have a local Texan onthe call.
You know, I actually grew up in, uh, in, inDallas, but I spent about eight years in, in Austin.
And I was actually very close, uh... I thinkyou're actually in Cedar Park.
I was at, uh, 1431 and, uh,
and that was at 620 out there. So we, uh... Very,very familiar with the area.

(00:44):
You know, lo- love Austin though. It's a greatplace and great, great place to, uh, to have a business,
especially in construction right now.
That's true.
So yeah.
Yeah. Thank you, thank you for having me on.
Yeah. Glad, glad to have you. So, so why don't youkinda give us, give us a little background?
You know, how did you... How did you get intoconstruction in the first place?
What, what led you to start TRS?
Sure. Um, so, uh, first of all, Eric, I would liketo congratulate you.

(01:06):
Best in Show at IBS.
Yep.
Very nice. Nicely done. I saw some of the posts,so congratulations on that.
We went-
Thank you
... for a few years. We didn't make it this year,but I did see your post.
And really, congratulations, that's a bigaccomplishment.
Thank you.
Um, in terms of how I got started, I will say I'vewatched several or listened to several of
your posts, um, repo-... several of your podcasts,and I have noticed that

(01:29):
some of the other business owners like myselfstarted working pretty early.
Um, I've heard people talk about, you know, theyreally started working mowing lawns or they started
working cleaning construction sites during thesummer.
Uh, my, my work life, uh, really started when Iwas 14 years old.
I started working in my dad's machine shop.
Uh, my dad did some specialty machining work, andhe had a small business. He had a machine shop.

(01:53):
And so I started working there. Um, believe it ornot, he had a CNC lathe, and
one of my jobs, one of my tasks, was to make thepunch
cards that went into this computerized lathe.
Huh.
And so that's seriously dating myself, but thelathe was also a little bit beyond its
time. It's what my dad could afford. Anyways.

(02:13):
And so my work life really started working in mydad's shop.
Um, basically worked from there, doing all sortsof things. Um, waitressing.
I did some waitressing when I was, I think, 17. Ahorrible waitress.
I was an awful, horrible waitress. I could notremember the details, and just that
was not the thing for me. Um, I went touniversity, University of Minnesota, uh,

(02:34):
graduated with a degree in engineering, and wenton to work for a consulting engineering
firm, Barr Engineering company. I think they'restill around, uh, up in Minnesota.
And, uh, after a few years, kind of thought about,um, going back to school.
I went back to school for environmental health
and went into the Peace Corps, and I served for acouple years in Central Africa as a

(02:55):
water and sanitation engineer. So
my career started in engineering. I moved to Texasafter coming home from Central Africa, did
not wanna handle the Minnesota cold anymore.
And then Texas, worked for some nonprofits.
Um, worked for a couple nonprofits, worked forgovernment and private sector in energy and
utilities.
Part of that was in green building, so, and alsocommercial efficiency, so that got me a little bit into the

(03:19):
building industry.
And then eventually, I got into more of a businessrole, strategic planning, organizational
development, looking at culture, which I'm, I'mreally interested in that.
I'm very interested in the people side ofbusiness. I think business is a people business.
We're in a people business. And so that, that partof the work really interests me.
It was around that time Shaniko and I startedtalking about s- running a business of our

(03:43):
own. Um, we knew some other people who had abusiness, and we're looking at what do we want for the trajectory
for the rest of our life, and thought, "You know,we can do this." So our plan was that I would keep working
corporate, he would get the business off theground.
We decided on remodeling, um, because we have ashared passion for home and family.
And also, we... He had personally GC'd twoprojects that we had done in our own homes.

(04:05):
And so he had some experience, he knew somecontractors that he liked.
And so we started TRS Build in 2015.
Um, today, we're excited this summer we're gonnacelebrate 10 years in business.
And today, what we do primarily is turnkey designbuild.
Um, everything from, you know, that initialmeeting, just having basic
conversations and scoping, all the way to doingthe permit, doing all the

(04:30):
plan sets. Um, we have an outside engineer thatstamps and seals our sets.
Doing the full construction and obviously thewarranty as well. So that's where we're at today.
That's awesome. You have, uh, quite the, quite thebackstory, quite the journey there.
I mean, starting off as a, you know, working inyour dad's machine shop, to waitressing, to you
going into engineering, and then into the, thePeace Corps and spending time in Africa.

(04:54):
I mean, what, what a, what an incredible journeythat-
Yeah.
You know, it seems like you, you, you were pickingup a lot of little pieces along the way there that all kind
of, you know, culminated in you, in you startingyour own, uh, design build firm.
Yeah.
That's g-... That's great.
Yeah, absolutely. And the interesting thing thatwas unexpected but a pleasant surprise, all
those different things that I learned
really applied. I mean, understanding how to readplan sets, reading engineering plans,

(05:17):
doing budgeting, uh, working with people, evendoing public speaking, and how do
you work in an organization, how do you develop ahealthy organization.
All of that stuff has worked really well, eventhough our business obviously is much smaller.
We have six employees. Um, so we're much smallerthan the types of companies that I was working for in the
past.
Sure. So, and, and what are the other...
So you and, and, and Shaniko, you-

(05:39):
Mm-hmm
... you guys are the owners of the business, butwhat is-
Correct
... what do the other employees do?
Yeah. We have a client service director, MaryTovar, who's amazing, who has led our
JobTread implementation, um, that we can chat ab-about a little bit if you like, if we talk about
tools and technologies. Jenny Machado is ourproject designer, also amazing, a
whiz at technology. Um, we have a pr- a projectmanager as well.

(06:02):
We have a field assistant who's part time, and wealso have a finance assistant
who's full time.
... nice.
Mm-hmm.
And so, you know, o- obviously, coming up on, on10 years, I mean, that's, it's an incredible feat.
Most, most businesses don't even make it, youknow, [laughs] one or two years.
So-
Mm-hmm
... you know, to, to have built a, you know, a, asustainable, you know, successful business for that

(06:23):
long is obviously a testament to, you know, thehard work and, and, and, and you've, you've made all the
right moves along the way. You know-
I wouldn't say that. [laughs]
Uh, well, you, you-
But we try to learn from them when we don't makethe right moves. But thank you.
Yeah.
Well, so what... I, I'm, I'm curious. Like, whendid you, when did you start building out the team?
Was that like-
Mm-hmm
... right away or did that kind of happen...
Like, did, did you and Shaniko run it for a fewyears on your own?

(06:46):
Kinda like what did the, sort of the, the growthof the, the team look like-
Yeah
... over those 10 years?
Yeah. No, that's a really good question.
And so as I mentioned, we, we launched the companyin 2015.
We subcontract out our work. Right now, we've gota network of, uh, at least 30 different
subcontractors in vary- in various capacities.
And, um, it was in 2019 when I transitioned toworking full-time.

(07:10):
Um, I would say at that time, you know, work...
Shaniko running the business and me just kindahelping out in the background worked well for a while, but as
you probably heard from other spousal businessowners, you get to a point where he's working
60 hours a week. I'm working a full-time job.
I'm working nights and weekends as well for thecompany, and it's just not sustainable to do that for
anybody.

(07:31):
Yeah.
Um, and so that's when we decided, in June of2019, that I would start working for the company
full-time. We brought on a couple people,
was it maybe a, a year or two later?
And,
you know, we kinda grabbed the people around.
Um, I would say we didn't think through reallywell defining their role and

(07:53):
responsibility. We just kinda thought it wouldbecome obvious, and it wasn't.
And, um-
[laughs]
... they, they were wonderful people. It didn'tnecessarily work out really well.
And I would say after they departed, it made usreally kinda hesitant to
bring other people on board again. But you get toa point when you're going where you absolutely need

(08:13):
to.
Yeah.
And so we started building out the team.
Um, Jenny has been with us for five years.
Um, Mary's been with us for four years.
Um, our, all of our people have been with us formore than two years.
And so we're really, honestly really proud of thattoo.
Um,
our team is amazing. They're people that we, theyare people that we had known for a long time, but we knew

(08:37):
them, that they also were very strongprofessionals.
And they've come on board, and they really, theycare about the growth and the stability of the
company. They care about our clients, and theyshare our culture-
Mm-hmm
... which is really having culture of service,that we're here to serve each other and we're to serve the
clients that, um, that, that come our way.
Yeah. That's-
And our trades as well.

(08:58):
That's great. Uh, you know, not to...
Ho- hopefully, it's not bringing up a sore subjector anything, but-
No
... like, when you think back about those first,you know, and, and people that you brought on that didn't
end up working out for you, you know, what... W-were they, were they project managers?
Kinda what were those roles? And then, like, atthe end of the day, like, what do you think, like...
D- was it, was it just not a good hire? Were the,were the, you know, was it the wrong p- Did you get the

(09:19):
person in the wrong role? Like, kind of, you know,what did- It seems like you kinda learned from that.
And I'm just curious 'cause a lot of peoplestruggle to, to, to make that leap, to hire those first
people and build out that team. That, you know,the timing of it or-
Mm-hmm
... you know, what, what should I hire them for?Like, so I'm, I'm, I'm just kinda curious.
Like, what, you know, sort of what were your keytakeaways from that?
Yeah. I think they were the right roles.

(09:39):
So it was a project manager and a designer, sothey were the right roles.
To some extent, they had,
especially our designer, for sure, had the rightbackground.
Um, it was more, I think, we had it fully thoughtout and s- and set what are the
expectations and how we expect them to do theirjob also.
Um, 'cause you can do those jobs in differentways.

(10:00):
And so as a result of that, just expectationsdidn't align, and we weren't ever able to
quite get there. The right way to do that,
in retrospect, is that you create that nice, clearjob description.
You're, you're interviewing people against thatjob description, and you're interviewing people.
You're interviewing multiple people, not just kindof finding someone that looks like you know will be a

(10:20):
good fit and then bringing them on board.
And then through that process, you make sure thatyou've got someone who
they understand what the expectations are gonna bewith them and you and they agree that, yes,
this is gonna be a good role. And you never know.
I mean, things could still go awry, but that's areally good starting place, I think.
Yeah.
And that's how we manage things now.

(10:40):
Yeah. I see, I see a lot of people who they're,they're just, they feel like they're drowning, and they just
need anybody to come help. And it's like the veryfirst person that comes along, you know, they, they bring
'em on. They just want any warm body in the, inthe seat. And it's like, man, that, that's...
So often, that's not the right move, and, and-
Mm-hmm
... and I realize, like, finding great people cantake a really long time.
Mm-hmm.
And, you know, but, but like you said, like, youhave to already know and have defined the, you know, the

(11:04):
roles, the responsibilities, the expectations.
And when you can set that out, you know, a- aheadof time and then interview against those,
those descriptions and those expectations, like,that really helps you, you know, enter into this, you
know, process and enter into, you know, thisemployment with them, you know, kind of having, you know,
that, that everything laid out, and you're on thesame page.
And so I think it does make it, you know, a loteasier.

(11:25):
But yeah, you gotta take, take your time to findthe right people.
I mean, every- everyone's probably heard, youknow, hire slowly, fire quickly.
You know, it's, it's, it really is true.
Ho- how did you, you know, how did you know thoughthat like...
So, so was it just like kind of a couple thingsweren't working out? You guys like...
I mean, you know, 'cause h- you know, lettingpeople go, I think, is, you know, probably one of the hardest

(11:46):
things of any, of any business leader.
Ho- how did you kinda finally draw the straw, and,like, did you......
you know, did, did, did you feel like you kindakicked that can down the road longer than you should, or was it
a pretty-
Yeah.
You know, you, you knew it and you made the move?
Uh, with the, with our project manager, um, Ithink that the kicking the can down the road is a good
example. And I'm going on recollection, I think heeventually left on his own.

(12:07):
Okay.
And so, and so that... You know, and, and it wasnecessary.
And then also, um... And then for the, for thedesigner that we had, again, very
talented, very skilled person. I'm trying tothink, they, we may have brought her on on kind of an interim
basis. And that is another thing that we do thesedays.
And it may not work always, you have to beflexible.
It may not work for the person who's taking theposition, but starting it off as either we're

(12:30):
gonna start at 20 hours a week, so we're gonnastart at half-time, and then build up from there,
if that's something that they can do. Or to starton kind of a probationary period.
We're gonna consider these first few months to bea probationary period.
And I think the nice thing about that is that thatsets a clear deadline. At this point, we're gonna talk.
We're gonna have basically kind of a mini review,talk about how things are going, and see,

(12:53):
you know, how, if there's any tweaks that we needto be make, is this a good fit for both people, and,
um, is there any tweaks that we need to be makingto make anything work smoothly for them or for
us?
Yeah, that's great. You know, I feel like a lot ofpeople, you know, they, they don't spend enough
time getting to know them upfront

(13:14):
before bringing them on full-time. And so it's,you know, yeah, I, I think it sounds like you're doing all
the right things, you know, making sure that, youknow, it's, it's gonna be a good fit because the wrong hire
can be such a costly-
Mm-hmm
... you know, and, and time-consuming move.
Um, but it sounds like, you know, again, the, the,the people you've got there now have been there with you
four or five, you know-
Sure
... plus years. Like, so what, what would you sayyou've done to really help sort of foster the

(13:36):
culture to keep people, you know, once you findthose right people?
Yeah. Um, I would say that, you know, our, ourapproach is,
is really, and I use the term, is, is having aservice culture that we wanna serve our
employees. You know, I think that the,
one of the greatest indicators of whether we'resucceeding as a leader is, are our employees

(13:59):
thriving?
And so are they,
are they, are they happy? But, you know, happy isfluctuating even with a very successful employee.
But are they growing?
You know, are they learning new things?
Do they generally enjoy their work?
Are they being challenged by their work, and dothey respond well when

(14:20):
there's, when those challenges happen?
Um, do we have a culture that's where it's okay tofail?
I think it's important to have a culture that'sokay to fail.
Something Shaniko says a lot, and I heard him sayit again this morning, "The only person who doesn't fail is
the person who never tries to do anything."
[laughs]
And so having a culture where, you know, if youfail, we're not gonna jump on you and give you a hard

(14:41):
time. That doesn't mean we won't, on someoccasions, hold people accountable, or sometimes, you know,
maybe, you know, get a little bit more animatedabout something that happened.
But, um, but generally speaking, when we have aculture where it's okay to fail, you can say, "Hey,
you know what? I can tell that
I think this is really what happened and it wasn'twhat we expected, and this is our situation right

(15:02):
now. Um,
let's talk about it and let's figure out,
one, how do we move forward?" So keep focused onthe positive and keep focused on moving
forward. And then if needed, and it's not alwaysneeded, but if needed, then think about
what are the processes that we need to put inplace to make sure this doesn't happen again?
And not every fail needs a new process, that canactually be detrimental as well.

(15:25):
Process is, is another thing that I believe, uh,pretty firmly in.
But, um, not every failure needs a new process,'cause then you can just get bogged down with stuff that
is gonna make you slower and less efficient.
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, it's, uh, it's, it's all... That's very,very good, good advice.
I'm, I'm a firm believer too, like, I would ratherour people try something and fail than to

(15:49):
not try at all.
Mm-hmm.
You know, now, I, I don't want them to keep makingthe same mistakes.
Yeah.
So I think it's important that they learn
from those mistakes.
Mm-hmm.
Um, but, you know, you, you know, I'd rather, youknow, I think that's just how innovation, uh, uh, you know,
happens is, is by trying new things and by lookingfor ways to, to improve.
And not everything's gonna work, but you knowwhat?
If it does work, then awesome, let's, let's, let'skeep going and keep doing that.

(16:11):
If it doesn't, well, you know, we, we tried and itdidn't work, and we can learn and, and pivot.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
So I, I'm curious when, when you think back about,you know, the early, you know,
early years of the business, you know, what typesof projects were you taking on and how did you get
those first customers? What did, what did thatlook like?
Yeah. Um,

(16:32):
when we first started the business, we used theterm walk and talk, walk and talk, walk and talk, walk and
talk, walk and talk. And you have to get thatfirst customer.
Our first customer came because we were walkingaround our neighborhood and there was a house for
sale. Let's go, they're having a open house. Wewatch and we talked to the real estate agent.
She referred us to a client. Um, at the time, theywere

(16:54):
looking for
just kind of more, more, like, cleaning andorganizing in their house.
But we're like, "We'll do it."
And that's another thing, in the beginning is,
um,
a lot of saying yes.
And so saying yes to things that you're capable ofdoing, of course, but sh- and we're like, "Yeah, yeah,

(17:14):
we'll do that." Well, that turned into a wholehome remodel.
Because after getting in there, getting to knoweach other, and this was Shaniko, I actually helped with
the cleaning and organizing on the weekend withour niece, which is a fun story for
us, when she was spending the summer with us. Andshe went with us, and the three of us went together.
We wish so much that we had that photo.

(17:35):
Um, at the time, we called the company StagingOrganizing Living and Design, and it was gonna be all
about organizing, living design, and light, andlight remodeling.
Well, this person into it asked, "Well, can...
I'd like some more lighting. Can you do that? Canyou do this?
Can you do this?" And again, it turned into awhole home remodel....
professional photos, um, 'cause that, that's oneof my regrets is that there were projects we did

(17:58):
that we maybe thought was too small or somethingso we didn't get professional photos.
And I wish so much that we had invested more ingetting that so we could've added
that to our library.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, professional photos, uh,uh, they, they, they can make all the difference in the
world whether you're, you know, showcasing aproject all the way to selling your home.
Like, you know, a, a photo, you know, and theright lens, like, it just, you know, i- it can just, it

(18:23):
really takes it to a whole nother level.
So-
Yeah.
Glad, glad to hear you say that.
Mm-hmm.
W- would you say, like, so, so obviously youlanded a, a, you know, a, a
large renovation, which is awesome.
Uh-huh.
You know, at what point did you really figure outthe whole design aspect of
it and the importance of, of, of doing design, youknow, to the, to the point that you brought

(18:45):
someone on full time to do it?
Yup, absolutely. It's a good question.
And so
in some ways we've been doing design since thebeginning, but we've become much more sophisticated with it
over the years. So in early design was if we'redoing a kitchen,
like, we would do a bathroom, a kitchen. We'd do alot of smaller projects.

(19:05):
It would be Shaniko bringing in tile samples totheir home.
That would be design, basically a materialselections process, helping pick with, pick out some paint
colors or something like that.
And then over time, we started picking up someother tools.
Eventually we picked up Chief Architect, and Jennyran with that.
She ran with that. And, um, and that's a tool thatwe still use today.

(19:26):
We've been very, very happy with it. And so I didsome design work for us.
Even when I started working with the company, Iwas doing some, some lighter design using some simpler
tools. And then but, um, when we got Jenny onboard using
Chief Architect is when we really, really canoffer full design
capabilities. And then we have our engineer whodoes the engineering plans, and then the two of them will

(19:50):
work together to marry those. So, like, if we'redoing a large addition or really any kind of
addition, sometimes even some, like, uh, likeremodeling a stairway inside the house,
normally those two have to have, and theycollaborate very well together.
That's what say, thing I would say. You know, youfind those collaborators outside your company.
We have an architect that we work with, and thatis something that we do as well.

(20:10):
So we do full,
uh, full service turnkey design build in-house,and that includes a permit as well.
So I actually do our permitting. That's whenpeople ask, they're like, "Why don't you hire an expediter?"
My view on that is that expediters are great ifyou're an individual homeowner and you don't
know anything about the permitting process.
But for us, in-house, it's good to have. When youdo permitting, you understand the city.

(20:34):
And we work in multiple cities around here, andthey're all very different in what they require.
And if you're not on top of that, you could evenstart designing something with a client that they
can't build, that can't be built because you don'tunderstand some of the restrictions in that particular
area. So I think there's a lot. And then gettingthe contacts.
Again, the people, getting the contacts within,within the city permitting offices that we can reach out

(20:56):
to sometimes if we've got a question, if we needsome help pushing something along.
Um, and so but having those outside resources.
O- Our engineer fits very well with our culture.
This architect that we work with works very wellwith our culture.
And, um, and, and we're looking at doing more workwith architects and designers at outside, but
collaborating with them. And we would be coming inas the builder where they're providing the

(21:18):
architecture and the design services.
Yeah. That's great. What, uh, are there, are thereparticular ways that you're trying to, you know,
really keep kind of building that relationshipwith your company? Like, do you, do you do events?
Do you kind of, like, bring them in? Like, h- howdo you, how do you really-
Huh
... foster that, that relationship with theengineers, architects?
Yeah. That's a good question. We have, uh, we haveone engineer that we work with right now, and we're

(21:41):
pretty dedicated to that one person.
That was, uh, for us, it's been tough to find anengineer that fits our really collaborative model.
And he is third party. He is very strict, and helets us know, "Hey, you need to fix this.
You need to fix this," and that's what we need himto do.
But he's collaborative in the way that he does itand the way that he communicates everything.
Um, we are doing more professional networking.

(22:02):
Again, I'm a people p- I'm a firm believer inprofessional networking.
Um, I've mentioned that we're, we're involved withNARI, the National Association Remodeling Industry.
In Texas, I think that's very important too,'cause in Texas, you may know, there is no
licensing for GCs. And so looking for a companythat is
a NARI member, know there's a code of ethicswithin NARI.

(22:24):
These are reputable builders that are gettingtogether to, on their own to learn from each other, and
they're paying to be part of an organization andinvesting their time and resource.
So I'm a big believer in that. We also recentlyjoined the local, um,
AIA, American Institute of Architects chapter asan allied member, 'cause we're
not an architect but we can join as an alliedmember and start to meet some more people and network that

(22:45):
way.
Yeah. That's great. You know, I see a, a lot oftimes i- it's, it's interesting, right?
Like, uh, every, every local community is gonnahave a handful of, you know, builders and, and,
and, you know, probably similar type businesses,you know.
And, and a lot of times, I, I, I see people kindof hesitant and resistant to kind of go and
network with who they, you know, think are thecompetition.

(23:06):
You know, it's like, "Well, I don't wanna help thecompetition." Like, you know, but at the same time, it's
like, man, there's, there, the, I th- I thinkpeople need to have this abundance mentality.
Yes.
Like, there's enough work out there for all of us.
And if, if, if everyone can work together and, andcan improve the, you know, the,
the, the trade as a whole and make sure thateveryone's delivering, you know, exceptional work and that,
you know, we're pricing it correctly and thatwe're doing right by the customers.

(23:29):
'Cause like, you know, uh, l- as, as I love tosay, a rising tide lifts all boats.
Yeah.
Like, you know, w- we can all as a community worktogether to be able to, to, to
grow and improve the businesses.
Mm-hmm.
And so, you know, I love the, the, the fact thatyou're so active in, in, in the NARI and the AIA.
I mean, like, these are great local communitieswhere you can.
You can, you can learn a tremendous amount fromother people and, and, and you can probably

(23:52):
find some great, great people to work with you tooat the same
time.What, what would you say, like, has...
You know, when, when you think about it, again,kinda early on, ho- how was your, sort of your, your, your
typical project change? I mean, as... You know, Iassume it d- it started off a little bit...
You know, your average price might have been-
Uh-huh
... a little bit lower, but as, as, as you'vegrown, the projects, have they kind of grown in size and, and

(24:13):
scale?
Absolutely. Yeah. And so doing... And even earlyon, we had some larger projects,
um, like a new home build, an accessory dwellingunit, but it was in a new home build.
Um, but over time we've gotten more projects, butwe for sure are getting...
We're getting larger projects and we're doingfewer projects a year. So maybe...
When I first came on board with the company, Ithink we were doing between 30 and 40 projects a year.

(24:36):
Now we're doing about 15 projects a year.
At any given time, we have about five projectsrunning at a time in different, in different
stages for those projects. And that's notincluding things that are in the design queue.
That's actual five projects that are in some pointin construction. Um, yeah, exact-...
So right now we're doing one ground up build, weare doing a whole home remodel,

(24:57):
we are doing two large additions, and a completegut
remodel of the interior of a home.
Um, what else do we have? We're finishing out...
This is fun and I love this, when we have clientsthat we worked for in the past that come back.
So these people, we did their kitchen for themback in, uh, 2020, I think it
was, and now they had us come back and we're doingt- They have a really interesting house.

(25:21):
So if y- you're familiar with Austin, the centralarea of Austin is, is our
hills. And they have a house on the hillside.
Their house is kind of like a spiral. It'sactually got four different levels in it.
And so it's a very interesting house to work in.
And, um, th- so but they brought us back to do theprimary bath, which was very wonky 'cause they're
wrapped around this... It was very... And veryinteresting.

(25:43):
And they're like, "We hate this." And I hadn'tbeen in it yet 'cause I'd only been in the kitchen.
I walked in, I'm like, "Wow. This is reallyinteresting and different."
[laughs] Uh, did not meet code at all.
And so doing a gut remodel on the primary bath.
Also the powder room, when you enter the home, andso that would be one that guests would see when they come in
the home. And then also doing new flooring on the,on what would be considered the first floor, the

(26:06):
entry level of the home. So, uh, but I love that,when our clients that we worked with in the past are bringing
us back to do more business with them, and it'sfun to get to, uh, be with them again and,
and, um, serve them again.
Yeah. That's, that's awesome. I mean, you know, Ithink repeat business is, is absolutely the best-
Mm-hmm
... the best work. You know, probably the nextbest work is, you know, when, when, you know, a customer's

(26:26):
referred you out to someone else.
Yeah.
You know, h- uh, h- what, what percentage of yourwork i- is kind of repeat and, and how do you...
How do these other new customers come in and howdo they find you?
Yeah. So we have, um... I would say like mostfolks, um, in this
industry, it's, it's a referral business.
And so probably 80% of our work is referral,

(26:47):
either a past client and looping in repeat in, inwith that.
And, um, also professional referrals, so it mightcome from an architect or from an engineer.
And then we also through, through SEO, people findus on our website.
We've actually found some of our, some of our bestprojects are people, they did a lot of research.
They researched, they researched, they researched.

(27:09):
And, and
we're, we're grateful that they found us.
And just looking at our website, they, theythought, "Okay. This could be a good fit," and it was.
It's a good fit personality-wise and it's a goodfit project-wise as well.
So yeah, as far as if we're thinking about peoplestarting up in the organization, you know, we mentioned
the marking photos before. Obviously having, um, awell done

(27:31):
website is very, very valuable. I will say SEOis...
I do not understand SEO. We did hire a company.
That's something that we did a few years ago,looking for someone who could help us with SEO.
We hired somebody, interviewed three com- Gotproposals from three companies, interviewed two, decided
on one.
And, um,

(27:52):
I don't know. I don't know if it helped us at all.
And then later, our, our web, the website owner,you know, we have the...
I don't know what you call it, the...
You know, the people basically who own the websiteand they manage it-
Yep
... um, they're like, "There's a lot of funkystuff on your backend here.
I don't know." And I was like, "Well, I didn't doit, but it was probably this company that we had hired a few
years ago."

(28:13):
Yeah.
So SEO is tricky. I find SEO to be really tricky.
Yeah. I mean, it-
We do blogs. We keep our blog to keep updatedinformation on our website.
And I enjoy that 'cause I enjoy writing. It's oneof my hobbies.
And so I actually enjoy doing blogs, but it'ssomething that you've gotta be consistent and
dedicated.
Yeah.
And I have someone who, um, we've hired contractbasis and she

(28:33):
helps me by drafting something and making sure weget something drafted once a month, and then I just have to
clean it up and post it.
That's awesome. Yeah. I mean, I... Your, yourwebsite looks great.
I mean, I see, you know, again, you got, you know,kind of about you all, the team.
You know, you've got reviews and testimonials,which is awesome.
But then, again, you're showcasing a lot of yourwork. You've got, you know, high-quality photos.
You know, I think that's, that's so important.

(28:54):
I'm, I'm curious, when, when did you decide thatyou needed to invest in a website and
started investing in, in marketing? Like, ho- howearly on was that?
Yeah.
Um, we need- we knew we needed a websiteimmediately.
I- if you have a business card, you need a websiteso people can go somewhere and see something about
you. Um, our first website was just very generic,

(29:17):
just so we could send people some place.
Um, and then over time, investing obviously inadding more, trying to understand more what is
best practices for developing website, having agood company.
Um, originally, we had a company that workeddirectly with builders who developed our new
website. When I came on board, that was one of thebig things I wanted to do was work on

(29:37):
giving a, a fresher face to our proposals, gettinga new website.
Um, so that was investing.
In terms of dollars, we haven't invested a lot.And we don't do Google ads.
I've heard, um, questionable things about whetheror not that's a good investment for remodeling
companies.
Sure.
Um, we've really put our, our marketing dollarsmore into... We do have some things.

(29:59):
We have these fun-... look at that beautiful soupmug. I love it.
Everybody has a regular mug. We have a soup mug.
You can-
[laughs]
... heat your lunch in it. You can have a big oldcoffee. Love it.
Nice.
So, so we do some little things like that.
Um,
for our 10-year anniversary, we might, we're stilltalking about what we're gonna do for that, but maybe
throwing a community party.
Oh, cool.
And just renting a place in a park and maybehaving hamburgers and hot dogs, just giving

(30:24):
them away for free. And really, just as anopportunity to thank the community that, that,
that we're still going strong 10 years in and wewere grateful to them for their support.
Yeah.
Um, so that's, yeah, so marketing, I would saywebsite, get those professional photos.
They're w- early on, it kind of feels like, "Oh,but it's cost this much,"
but in the end, um, it's, it's a good investment,especially if you find a photography service

(30:46):
that can do it at, at a pretty good price point.
Yeah. You know, I think the, you know, o-obviously, I- I'm, I'm a big proponent of you gotta have a
website and it's gotta be, you know, a reallygreat website. I mean, that's, that's your face.
That, that's often-
Mm-hmm
... the, the first experience that a prospect is,is gonna have with your company.
And so, you know, making sure that you are, youknow, putting that best foot forward.
If you only get one chance to make an impression,it's gotta be a great one.

(31:09):
Uh, and, and-
True
... you know, it sounds like, again, y- you guyskind of figured that out.
And, you know, the SCO, like, I mean, it's just,it's all about continuing to publish content.
You know, Google rewards those who continually,you know, feed, feed the beast, if you will.
You just keep putting out new content, putting outinformation that...
You know, but it's gotta be high-quality content.
It's gotta be relevant and, and, and, andbeneficial and valuable content that people

(31:31):
actually want to come and, and spend the time toread and to consume.
You know, 'cause Google sees, like, if someonejust, you know, searches for something and then they click
on, on that page and it has nothing to do withwhat they were looking for, they immediately, you know, leave.
And so that's, you know, it, they, they know wherethe high-quality content is and that, that it's
relevant,
you know, and beneficial. And so, like, you know,having you involved is, is obviously, you know, huge

(31:53):
because you know the ins and the outs of thebusiness.
You know what, you know, your customers are sayingand what might be helpful and beneficial.
You know, I think, obviously, having someone draftup content, totally, totally great.
You know, being able to just sort of keep youmaking sure that you're getting it out there and getting it
going, you know, is obviously a lot easier to kindof take, uh, something that's already been drafted and
kind of work with that-
Mm-hmm
... than to have to start from scratch.

(32:13):
But, um, you know, definitely encourage everybody,if, if you're not doing that, if you don't have a blog or
if you're not continually adding pages to yourwebsite, then, like, that, that is an easy win.
It's so important that you do it. Um, you know,you bring up the advertising thing, which, which, again,
it's, it's a, it's something that I think if, ifyou've got, you know, a very healthy lead flow,
if, you know, if you're looking to, to take on,you know, just, you know, I mean, it sounds like around 15

(32:35):
projects a year, you know, and you don't need theads, well, cool.
I mean, you, you don't necessarily need to spendit.
I mean, if you're getting what you need and it'smostly referrals-
Mm-hmm
... and it's working, awesome. You know, for, forthose who are looking for maybe a little bit, you know,
higher volume type business, they need, you know,more projects, you know, per month, per year,
you know, that's where I do think, you know, thelocal advertising, being able to, to run those Google Ads,

(32:56):
you know, uh, Facebook Ads, things like that,those, those can definitely work and I've seen them work.
You know, but I think what's, what's important isthat, you know, like, you gotta make sure that, like,
you're, you're, you're monitoring it and thatyou've got somebody who really knows what they're
doing. I have spent countless, like, thousands andthousands of dollars on, on
ads to, to have, like, absolutely nothing to showfor it.

(33:17):
Yeah.
And, and it's like, you know, if, if you don'thave the right person, you know, managing those ads with the
right content and continually adapting and, andimproving them over time, then, like, you know, it
can be a huge, you know, time suck and yourcustomer acquisition cost can, can just balloon out of control.
Versus, you know, when you do kind of have thatright partner, you know.
And, and I highly recommend if someone wants to godown the ad route, like, you know, find a, a, a

(33:40):
partner who has very, you know, specificexperience with four construction companies
doing the local targeting and they can show you,you know, their, their results.
You know, it's, it's what is that, you know, ROI?
What is that customer acquisition cost that youcan expect? You know, where are you gonna show up?
How are you gonna target these ads? Things likethat.
So, you know, I think it's, you know, it soundslike though, you guys, you know, may not, may not necessarily

(34:01):
need that. You got a very healthy, you know,business.
You're, you're, you're running the, running the,the company with, you know, the, the,
the, the number of projects that you want. They'vegrown in size.
And, and yeah, you know, so it's, it's kind of allabout what's right for your business.
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't, I don't recommend people just diveinto the ads if-
Yeah
... if there's not a real need, you know?
Yep, absolutely. And we're always looking to grow.
So, you know, absolu- and we have talked aboutsome different paths.

(34:24):
Um, even, you know, there's a local magazine that,that's contacted us about doing
advertisement in it.
And to me, it's attractive because again, I liketo write, I like to do these things.
But I know for me, and this is a mistake, weshouldn't do this, but I know for me, I get this in
the mail, "Oh, look at that, that's nice," and itgoes in the recycling.
Yep.
And so, like, that's one thing I would say we'venever done, like, the postcards by the mail, none of that.

(34:47):
One of the things I think that I'm finding,especially as you get into these larger projects,
there's not a whole lot... It takes a certainamount of courage to put a second story on your house-
[laughs] Yeah
... and you gotta move your family out for six,seven, eight months, you know, depending on
the scope of the project. It's a lot.
Yeah.
Not a lot of people are really, are really...These are people who they love their community.

(35:09):
Usually, that's what, they love their community.Their kids are in the local school district.
They've got a lot of sense of place for where theyare, but they also have needs.
Yeah.
And so, but I find that it's, there's not a lot ofpeople who are really willing to, to
make the commitment they need to do as a homeownerto do that.
Um, of course, our job is to help partner withthem, help them set expectations, understand what they need

(35:30):
to do to make everything go as smoothly aspossible.
Um, so it's, we, we have been putting a lot ofthought into, you know, how do we target
to find
those kind of folks-
Mm-hmm
... and, and really help them to understand ourservice model,
that we're here, we're here to help them take anundertaking that may seem

(35:51):
just very obscure to them and make it clear
and help them to understand that it is our job tohold their hand through the
process and deliver-
Sure
... something beautiful in the end. And so, butfind, finding that market, that's... I welcome your ideas.
I love it, Eric, 'cause you have, you have a, youtalk with so many people....
and you've got a great business mind yourself so Ilove hearing your ideas, and I would love to

(36:16):
pick your brain some more sometime on-
Yeah, any, anytime
... some of those marketing efforts.
It, it, it sounds like you know what your targetcustomer, your, your ideal
customer is-
Mm-hmm
... but do you... Are, are there kind of, like,red flags that you look for when you first meet people, or,
like-
Yeah
... certain types of customers that you know youjust might not be the best fit for or
don't wanna kinda go down that road with?

(36:37):
Like, uh-
No
... any- anything like that?
Red flags. For me, I think the biggest one
is when you meet with someone and they say, "I'veworked with
two, three
builders or contractors over the past
and they, they were horrible, I couldn't trustthem, all these things happened." And, you know,
it is like a relationship. When you, especiallyfor a large, not for some of the smaller ones, but for a large

(37:02):
project, it is truly like a relationship.
If you were to meet someone
and let's say they had been married three times
and they look back and they say, "All of mymarriages dissolved because of
my spouse. It was all their fault-"
[laughs]
... you know, you probably wouldn't wanna get in arelationship with them.
Yep.
So for that, that's probably, I would say that'sthe biggest red flag is if someone says that

(37:26):
they have had multiple experiences and none ofthem have gone well.
'Cause there is this, um,
there is still, to some extent, an image out thereabout the big bad builder.
Yep.
And the builders are the bad guys.
Um, now I network with people, intentionally, whoare very reputable builders.
They are, they are not bad guys, they are not badguys.
But there can come a time where a customerperceives them as a bad guy because of their past experience,

(37:49):
whatever it is, and makes things very challengingfor everybody.
Sure.
So if you're working with someone that, whatevertheir history, their personal history, for some reason,
they couldn't make it work with three othercontractors, it's probably not gonna work with me either.
Early on, I did not have that 'cause early on, Iwas like, "Well, we could be the hero.
Wow, this person, all these bad experiences,we're, we're service-minded."

(38:10):
[laughs] .
"We, we're gonna do a good job." And
it doesn't necessarily work out that way.
Yup. Yup.
So I'm curious to kind of talk a little bit aboutfrom, from, like, an operational standpoint, you know,
so it sounds like you, you know, you said you'vegot about, you know, 30 or so different subcontractors
that you're using right now, you're running aboutfive concurrent projects at a time.

(38:33):
You know, how, how do you, how do you manage allof that?
How do you make sure that, you know, you're,you're, you're scheduling it all out, you're getting all of the
right, you know, kind of people and, and thingshappening all sort of in conjunction-
Yeah
... with each other?
Um, let's see. So, um,
that gets into a bit of a topic with us aroundroles and responsibilities. So we only have one PM.

(38:54):
Shaniko stepped in. He stepped in and he's PMingone of our job and he is an
amazing PM. Shaniko's an amazing...
And he also serves, essentially, as our operationsmanager.
Mary Trevar, our client service director, alsooversees
communications and really kinda, she's...
I call her, she is like our angel hovering overeverything.

(39:14):
Good. Good.
And kinda just keeping an eye on- and I try to dothis as well but I also have other things that I need to be
taking care of. And, um, and s- but she's kindakeeping an eye on everything.
I also just try to keep an eye on generalcommunications too. I ra- I read that first line.
I say I'm a first-line reader. Anytime I see amessage with a client, I read that first line.
And usually, in there, you can gauge a little bitabout what's going on.

(39:36):
And so I will, I will track that as well and thenstart checking in with folks if I start seeing there might be
an issue. Um, so as far as just keeping thingsrunning,
um, you know, we h- we have a weekly meeting thateverybody's on,
um, and so that's a, that's a checkpoint for usall to make sure we're all on the same page.
JobTred has been... You know, we implementedJobTred last

(39:59):
fall was when we began,
and we had our own... You know, Shaniko and I areboth Excel geeks.
He is a master at Excel and so we had beenessentially running the company with...
He had his own d-... Uh, he has an MBA and amaster- and a degree in finance
and so he really understands finance and how to doreporting, so he was tracking that next cell.

(40:19):
Um, we had a p- a tool we called ETIM that even inChile somebody went, "We could sell this
someday." Um, and it did our proposals, contracts,
manage payments to contractors, track thefinancials for the project.
It did a lot of thing in an pr- a pretty elaborateExcel workbook that we then put into Google Sheets
where everybody could see it and have somevisibility. So that helped a lot.

(40:42):
Um, when I started hearing about JobTred, uh, Ican sh- if it's okay for me to
share kinda some of our-
Yeah
... experience around that. Um, the first time Iheard about it, and I'd heard about
BuilderTrend, kinda some, not, not nothing glowingenough to make us wanna, wanna move over.
And then I heard about JobTred and I actually senta link to our team. I said, "Hey, everybody.
Take a look at this." I think only one personactually looked at it and it was Jenny, our designer.

(41:07):
And she's like, "Ah, I love this. It's amazing."Nobody else said anything so I just kinda let it
go. And then I'm having lunch with a colleague whoI have a lot of respect for and
she's talking about how they started implementingJobTred.
And then Shaniko and I are having lunch with abuilder who's been around for four years
and he starts talking about they've been usingJobTred.

(41:28):
And so then
I send
a note to Mary saying, "Let's get a demo."
And we got a demo. I think it was Jenny, Mary, andI.
Shaniko, I'm sure, was on that demo as well.
And right after that meeting, we're like, "Okay,when are we gonna implement?
We're gonna implement this."
[laughs] .
Um, and I'm a person, typically I believe in thatyou take three, you investigate three, but we saw

(41:50):
enough and I knew enough about other technologiesthat I was like, "This is something
we need." And Mary took the lead and startedrolling out with it.
Keeping, getting back to your, your point aboutkeeping everything together and keeping everything
organized,
that h- the way we do communications now inJobTred, and we are,

(42:11):
we had some clients that were, that weretransitional.
But now, especially all new projects, everything,every communication is going through
JobTred.... I will still have texts on the sidewith clients because I like that personal
relationship-
Yeah
... but anything related to the project is goingthrough a portal, is went.
And we can see everything and Mary as the admin,and I beli- I have admin rights so I

(42:32):
can see every single... There is no more-
[laughs]
... the project manager had a text, but then thisemail went out from
someone else and the project manager doesn't knowthat the designer sent an email.
And so keeping everything on the same page hasbeen
just fantastic. It's been really fantastic. Andeven all the documents, you know, we've got...

(42:53):
We're using it for our documents.
And I give the kudos to this goes to Mary,
and then it also goes to Jenny. Because- and Iwould give this as advice to anyone
who's thinking about using JobTread or any toolreally, have somebody in the
organization who has a vested interest in thisbeing successful and give them the
authority

(43:13):
to
release them to, "You take care of this for us.
And you come to me, you hold me accountable whenI'm not doing the stuff you need me to do-
[laughs]
... just like everybody else."
Yeah.
And that was, I think, very successful for usconcerning...
We, we purchased the tool, I think, in November.
And by January, we were already doing

(43:34):
proposals, doing internal communications.
Um, we had, I think, almost all of our vendors in,in the portal.
And at this point, we are doing change orders.Jenny's doing material selections.
I mean, we are doing the vast majority, prettymuch everything for the project and holding our
files within JobTread. And so it's been keepingeveryone on the same page, sharing

(43:57):
information with clients, sharing information withour social media person.
It's just been, it's, it's been a game changer forus.
And-
That's awesome
... for all of us, it's just we know, we can see,we have visibility.
Yeah.
And so that's really helpful.
Yeah. That's, that's great. A- and I love yourapproach and, and your advice.
And I mean, somebody, you know, needs to own this.
Somebody needs to, you know, be the, the, theexpert, the, the, the in-house, like, who

(44:21):
are we gonna go to? You know, we kind of, sort ofcall that, like, the train-the-trainer model, right?
Mm-hmm.
Like, you gotta have a, a person on your teamwho's, who's gonna be that point person
who, you know, when anyone else has questions,they go to them and they either know the answer or they know
how to get the answer. Whether it's, you know, o-on the help desk, whether it's reaching out-
Mm-hmm
... to the customer success team or, you know, ourtrainers or whatever it may be.

(44:43):
You know, having that person who, who really isgonna be the admin is, is so valuable.
And, you know, I, I do, I, I, sometimes I see, youknow, business owners, they, they love it, they wanna do
it, but, you know, they're so busy and sooverwhelmed that they don't end up kind of taking, you know, the
time and devoting the time to getting itimplemented.
And the companies that, you know, that, that areable to, to, to spend that time, whether it's, you know, the

(45:06):
owner or someone else on the team who can, youknow, really devote the time to getting it set up
and then showing everybody else how to do it.
You know, because, you know, every business hastheir own unique processes.
Mm-hmm.
They have their own kinda ways that they wanna doit.
You know, you got your own, you know, templatesand, and, and, and formats and things like that.
And it's like, somebody's gotta go through andkind of help get that implemented and get that loaded up.

(45:26):
And, you know, sounds like, you know, your, yourteam, you know, Mary really took the, took the bull by the
horns and was a, was a, was a phenomenal, youknow, asset to get i- get it going for you all.
Yeah. And I have to give credit, a lot of creditto Jenny too, because she's also been right there,
um, alongside, um, working on this. And again, thetwo of them are just...
We, we are very fortunate, very blessed to haveboth of them.

(45:46):
Our company would not be what it is today withoutthose two ladies.
And so-
Awesome
... we're just really grateful for them.
Well, sh- sh- shout out to both, uh, you know-
[laughs]
... bo- both of 'em for, uh, doing, doing, doing agreat job.
You know, again, it, it, it can be, it can betough, you know, when, when, when not everybody's on board.
And it's like, you got some people who, you know,really understand the, the why and, and, and they

(46:07):
wanna make it happen, but then sometimes the, youknow, some other people in the company aren't as, you
know, excited about it, or maybe the subs arepushing back or whatever it is.
And, like, you know, really, I think all of thatcomes down to, you know, how, how, how well do you,
you know, put that intentional focus on, you know,getting it implemented and then creating that,
you know, that, that, that training, the, the, theSOPs, the, you know, kind of the documentation to help

(46:29):
everyone understand, you know, not just, like, howto do it, but why we're doing this.
Mm-hmm. Yep.
How is this gonna help us better manage ourprojects?
How is this gonna help us, you know, to win morejobs or to keep these jobs on, on schedule, on
budget? Like, you know, how is it gonna deliver abetter customer experience?
Like-
Absolutely.
... when people see that why and they get it,like, that's, that's when people really, you know, will come to
the table and, you know, kind of have a little bitmore open mind if, if they didn't before.

(46:52):
Mm-hmm.
So I, I'm curious, you know, when, when you thinkback about, you know, again, the last, uh, you know,
10 years since, since you started this business,like, is there anything that, you know, that, that you
know now that you wish you would have known, youknow, earlier on that you think might have sorta
helped, you know, maybe over- overcome a couple ofthose roadblocks or, you know, those, uh, th-

(47:14):
those hard lessons that you had to learn?
Yeah. You know, um, just like I think a lot aboutthe people that we
work with, um, think of our clients, how do theyfeel.
Uh, we use a lot that quote, the Maya Angelouquote, I'm sure you've heard, "People will forget what
you said, they'll forget what you did, but they'llnever forget the way you made them feel."
We use that a lot internally. Now, what we do ismajor transformations to their homes, so they'll probably

(47:38):
not actually forget what we did 'cause it's kindaright in their face all the time.
But when we say about, um,
the way we made them feel,
um,
homeowners, there is something, you may have heardthe term, the homeowner emotional roller coaster.
One of my favorite blogs on our website, and wesend a link to this to...

(48:00):
We send it to our clients
when we're at commenced construction as areminder, but we're talking about it through the process as
well. The fact that there's a very real cycle thatmost homeowners go through.
And everybody, of course, reacts a little bitdifferently. Some people are excited with demo.
Some people are very anxious about it 'causethey're seeing their home.
They're like, "Oh my gosh, this is reallyhappening.
My home is being taken apart."

(48:21):
Yeah.
So people have different responses to that.
So when we say about, "People will forget what yousaid, they'll forget what you did,"...
they'll never forget the way made them feel.
You know, our hope is that years down the road
when they look at their home, they will feel, one,"I made a good
decision when I did this, and I made another gooddecision when I hired Terrace Build." And I hope

(48:42):
that they'll remember that we took care of themand we took care of the home, and we treated both them and
their home with respect throughout the wholeprocess. All through- there's gonna be ups and downs.
It's just natural. I'll tell you, one of our homeremodels that we did, I remember Shaniko calling me,
"Baby, the baseboards are done. They look amazing.
I'm so excited the baseboards are done." I camehome, I saw the baseboards, and I was not

(49:03):
excited. I'm like, "What do you mean?
These always look good." And, well, they hadn'tbeen finished out, but I didn't know that.
And so, you know, these c- these things can happenas you go.
You see surprises, things that you don't expect.
And so, you know, advice that I would give toother contractors is that,
um, you know, we talk about the service of,service culture, have an attitude of service to people.

(49:24):
When people know that you have good intentions forthem, and that's a big part of having an attitude of
service, they know that you have good intentionsfor them,
um, in the long run, I think they'll- they'llremember that and they'll remember how you made them
feel. Um, personally also, in terms of how we feeland how we react,
um, I've had to do, you know, my own internalwork.

(49:46):
One was letting go of things I can't control.
You know, there's so many things that we can'tcontrol, and it's hard for me to even recognize that because
as a person, I know, I believe and I know that weeach have an influence and
effect on the people around us and the environmentaround us every day, but there are a lot of things that we
just do not have complete control over.
So when something comes up and I don't havecontrol, I've learned to literally just

(50:12):
take that deep breath and say, "I do not havecontrol over this.
Who do I need to call who's gonna help us figureout what we're gonna do next?"
And then communicate to the clients or whoever weneed to communicate, "Hey, this is going on.
This is what we're handling. This is what we'redoing." And so that's been letting go of control.
Um, to release my perfectionism, 'cause I can be abit of a perfectionist.

(50:33):
I think part of being a perfectionist also is thatyou can impose it on others,
that's even worse, and you can be really critical.
And so something that I've had to work on, andI'll tell you, so Shaniko and I,
working together
as a married couple,
um-
Who's-
He is, he is a profo- on the Enneagram, if you'veheard of the Enneagram, he is a one, which is perfectionist.

(50:56):
We have a bunch of ones in our company. And I'm aneight, and an eight is a challenger.
The last thing a perfectionist wants is to bechallenged,
and so I've had to really learn how to do that,both for the g- the sakes of
our relationship as well as our relationship asbusiness owners, how to handle that
challenge with r- with grace and respect when Ineed to challenge him about something.

(51:19):
And so that for me has a big, I think, lessonlearned.
Also for us as co-owners of the business, I belie-you know, w- when
things- things got a little rocky, as I mentioned,you know, I started with the company in 2019,
June of 2019. Well, you know what happened inDecember. COVID hit.
And I'll tell you, those first, those...

(51:40):
When we had gone through those first six months,we were not always treating each other
the same way you would treat a coworker orco-leader in a corporate setting.
And so, um, we, when COVID hit and we
had no oth- when e- when it finally hit for sure,I think, I wanna say it was like March 15

(52:00):
of 2020 when the City of Austin said, "We'reshutting down."
And our sales pipeline drained
in that one day.
And we had a couple projects going on, but we hadto really be like, "Okay, we gotta figure this out
because this company right now, we have nocorporate safety net.
It's our company and this is all that we have totake care of ourselves and our family.

(52:21):
And so we gotta figure this out." And, and we did,and we made our way through that.
Um, and in the end, I think right now we have alot, we are much more supportive with, and we
understand that
he ha- you know, he's over operation. We all getinvolved in operations, but he...
It's very easy to pick on operations.
Yeah.
It's very tangible, it's very clear. Um, and so Ithink we've grown.

(52:43):
And I have, you know, things that I deal with too,'cause ultimately the client relationship is on me.
And so as a natural tension that's come up is thathe tends to be more contractor-centric
in seeing their side. I tend to be moreclient-centric in seeing their
side.
And so I've had to learn how to balance thathaving

(53:03):
the care and compassion for our clients, I need tohave that for our team and our subs sometimes too,
'cause we talk about don't make assumptions, but Iwill tell you...
And one of the other,
um, things I would say is admit when you're wrong.
And I think especially when you're starting out,you can be really afraid to say, "You know what? I'm wrong.
Our- our team made this mistake and this is howwe're gonna move ahead with it." Um,

(53:25):
but that can really open up a, it can grease thepathway for having
success and moving forward when we can just say,"You know what?
I'm wrong." And I had to do it last week
because I got upset and I did not have the samecar- com- curiosity and compassion for our
team
and I thought something went wrong, and it turnsout they did it well and I had to

(53:47):
swallow it. And I apologized to Shaniko and Iapologized to our team
and I said, "You guys, I just want to say-"
Mm-hmm.
"... that I'm sorry because I jumped to aconclusion and it turns out that
our guys followed all the right steps and they dideverything right."
Um, so yeah. I would say, you know, work on yourperfectionism.
Know there are a lot of stuff that we can'tcontrol in this business, but we can control ourselves.

(54:10):
We can control our feelings and we can control howwe show up.
You may have heard the analogy between you'rehaving an argument with your spouse, your child,
your sister, whoever,
and you are just in the heat of it, maybe. Let'sjust say that happens. I don't know.
And the neighbor shows up at the door.
You open that door.Hey, Charlie. How's it going?

(54:31):
Yeah. So people say we can't control our feelings,but we can control our feelings.
Yeah.
But we have to learn how to do that. Um, so can'tcontrol the things around us, but we can c- control
ourselves. And so, I think that's important forpeople to understand as they're starting
this business 'cause the emotions will run high.
Take a look at our blog post on The EmotionalRollercoaster, um, if you wanna take a look.

(54:52):
And we made a little video. It's very short.
It's about two minutes long, but it does talkabout the fact that, you know, emotions happen
and it's a natural part of the process, but we cancontrol our own.
Man, that's, uh, that's awesome. Annemarie, I, I,I, I love everything you just
said. I mean, that, that is so true. Like, youknow, i- i- this- this- this is- it's a journey

(55:14):
that, that, that you're gonna be on both with,with your employees, with your customers.
Every project is its own unique journey.
Mm-hmm. Yep.
You know, and, and, and you're so right.
It, it's, you know, i- i- th- the project couldgo, you know, any number
of, you know, directions. And, and withconstruction we, we know there will be issues.
Yep.
Things will come up. And, you know, it's, it's allabout how you handle those issues and how

(55:37):
you, you know, proactively address it, thetransparency you provide, like being open and honest
with the, you know, with the customer. You know,just do right by them.
At the end of the day, like, they're not gonnaremember much of any of that.
Yep.
But they're gonna remember how you made them feel-
Absolutely
... and the experience that they had.
That will single-handedly be the thing that willmake them either refer you out to others-

(55:58):
Mm-hmm
... or wanna hire you again or not.
Yeah.
You know? It's, it's so important and, and I thinky- you said it, you know, just right.
I- I'll, I'll definitely have to go check out thatblog post, The Homeowner Emotional-
Great
... Rollercoaster. I mean, that, that's awesome.
I'm so glad that, like, you've actually documentedthat and, and have it in a way and you use that in your,
in your process.
Mm-hmm.
You know, such a cool thing that, that, thatyou're doing there.
You know, and, and, and, and, and you'reabsolutely right.

(56:20):
I mean, like, at the end of the day, like we're,we're all humans. We all have emotion.
And the people who, you know, the, the, the bestleaders are the ones who can control, you know,
the, the, their emotions and they can control, youknow, how they react.
And, and, and again, like, don't make assumptions.Like, be curious.
Yep.
You know, be compassionate. Like, try to know andgive people benefit of the doubt, you know, like to, to

(56:41):
hear them. You know, because so many times, youknow, we, we all, you know, can, can kind of just make
assumptions and then, you know, jump toconclusions or get really defensive.
Mm-hmm.
And like, it just, like, that's not healthycommunication.
It's true.
You know, it's so important to be able to havegood, healthy communication where, you know, yo- yo- you
know, you, you wanna make your, your company and,and, and, and your jobs a place that, you
know, that, that people want to come and they wantto be involved.

(57:03):
I mean, that's how you, that's how you attractand, and keep your best workers.
That's how you attract and keep your best clients.
Like, you know, you, you gotta have that, that,that, that human, you know, relationship
that, that comes from a healthy, open, honestcommunication where, you know, people
aren't scared, you know, to come to you with aproblem. Like, "Let's, guys, we're gonna work through it.

(57:24):
It's okay. Like, let's, let's figure out what weneed to do." And like, you know, I think that it just, it, it
just comes across so loud and clear that, youknow, the way that you and, and Shaniko are running this
business is it's, it's, it's a great culture.
Mm-hmm.
It's, it's a place where you truly value andrespect, you know, the people that, that, that interact with
your business. Everyone from your customers toyour subs to, you know, to, to, the third party, you know,

(57:45):
engineers, architects.
Mm-hmm.
Like, you know, and, and that's what it takes tobuild a successful business that, you know, is, is,
is, is, is gonna sustain the test of time.
I mean, in the last decade, I mean, y- you know,you, you've seen a lot of ups and downs.
You know, we, we know that
times will be hard, times will be great.
Like-
Mm-hmm
... but at the end of the day, it's, it's thebusinesses that, that have those solid, you know,

(58:07):
teams and cultures and core values, those are theones that, that make it
through no matter what happens. They, they thrivein the hardest times.
And, and you have clearly built a very, verystrong foundation here for your company.
And I just, I, I, I appreciate you coming on todayand sharing that with everyone out there because I,
I think it's, you know, there's so many greatlessons that people can learn from your successes and the

(58:28):
things that... you know, a- a- and yourchallenges.
I mean, even talking about, you know, those, thosehires that you made early on that weren't, you know,
didn't, didn't work out, like, there's so muchthat, that people can learn and take away from this.
So, so Annemarie, I just, I, I wanna thank youfor, for everything that you've done, for being such a great
role model, and for taking-
Mm-hmm
... the time here to, to share your journey. It,it really means a lot to me and to the entire community.

(58:49):
Well, thank you very much, Eric. I appreciatehaving the opportunity to talk with you.
Um, again, I, we respect you a lot as a businessleader and what you've done with your
business is absolutely amazing. Um, we wish youvery much success.
And I know you are very much a part of our successas a company, so we really appreciate you.
Oh. Th- thanks so much.
And Ross. Ross is our client manage- What is it?The client manager, success manager.

(59:11):
Yep.
Mary says she's like his second son.
[laughs] .
He adores him.
Awesome. Well, I will, uh, I will be sure to sharethis with Ross, uh, but you know, again, we're, we're
excited to see all your success and I can't waitto see what the future holds for you all.
I have no doubt it'll be great.
[laughs]
Uh, you know, and also look forward to, uh, toseeing you at the NIEER conference, uh, next week.
And, uh, yeah, until then, hope you have a greatweekend and just again, thank you again for coming on.

(59:34):
You bet. You take care.
Alrighty. Bye-bye.
Thanks for joining us for this episode of BuilderStories.
We hope you enjoyed the conversation and gainedvaluable insights that can help you in your
journey along the way. Don't forget to subscribeto the show and leave us a review.
And as always, if you or someone you know has astory to share, please contact

(59:55):
us at builderstories.com. We'd love to hear fromyou.
I'm Eric Fortenberry, and remember, every builderhas a unique story.
Keep building yours. [rock music]