October 6, 2025 • 18 mins
What happens when a banking executive and a registered nurse decide to completely reinvent their lives at age 55? Dale and Stephanie's journey from comfortable careers to launching Cedar Direct, a specialty lumberyard in Western North Carolina, offers a masterclass in mid-life entrepreneurship and business development.
"Pine is fine but cedar is sweeter" might be their catchy slogan, but the story behind Cedar Direct reveals the grit, planning, and relationship-building required to establish a specialty business in a new market. Dale brings his financial expertise from years as a chief credit officer while Stephanie applies her organizational skills to manage the countless details of running a lumberyard. Together, they've created not just a business but a community resource for high-quality Western Red Cedar, a product previously difficult to source in the region.
Their candid insights about the entrepreneurial journey ring true for anyone considering a business launch. "For anybody starting a new business, you don't have a personal life," Dale admits, highlighting the all-consuming nature of entrepreneurship. Yet their approach to business - built on four core principles of trust, timeliness/integrity, treating others well, and maintaining a drama-free workplace - has enabled them to build a cohesive team that shares their vision. Their commitment to expertise, sending all employees to "Cedar School" and conducting regular product education, ensures everyone can speak knowledgeably about their specialty products.
What truly sets their story apart is how they've embraced community involvement alongside business development, joining local economic development boards and partnering with organizations like Rutherford Housing Partnership to assist Hurricane Helene victims. Their experience demonstrates that authentic community engagement isn't just good citizenship—it's good business.
Discover how this couple transformed from financial and healthcare professionals to cedar experts, and how they're building a business designed to expand while maintaining the personal touch that defines their brand. Their story might just inspire your own entrepreneurial leap!
Visit cedardiret.com to learn more and see their full product line.
Contact information:
dale@cedardirect.com
Thanks for Listening. You may contact me or our team at https://billgilliland.biz/
All the best!
Bill
Thanks for listening. Please hit the subscribe button, leave us a 5 star review, and share this podcast. You can reach me at williamgilliland@actioncoach.com or at https://billgilliland.biz/
All the best!
Bill
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Bill Gilliland (00:02):
Hey there, welcome to this week's episode
of Epic Entrepreneurs.
I'm Bill Gilliland, your host.
I am the principal at ActionCoach Business Growth Partners
here in Western North Carolinaand I'm also one of the
co-founders of the AshevilleBusiness Summit.
Now I'm excited today becausewe have Dale and Stephanie from
(00:23):
Cedar Direct, and I'll let themtell you what Cedar Direct is.
So welcome to the podcast.
What the heck is Cedar Direct?
Well, thank you, bill.
Dale (00:31):
Cedar Direct is a company.
It's a specialty lumberyard.
Our home base is in Wisconsin.
We ended up a couple yearslater putting a store up in
Chapel Hill, tennessee.
Nobody wanted to drive over theAppalachias so after some
market studies on Western RedCedar and what's selling in the
area, we ended up finding a spotover here in North Carolina.
Bill Gilliland (00:53):
Yeah, well, that's awesome.
So let's dig in a little bit onthe business side of things.
Let me just get your take on, Ilike.
If I mean, uh, how long haveyou been in business?
Dale (01:06):
The company as a whole has been around for 10 plus years.
Um, we just opened up.
While we searched all the lastyear uh, from North Carolina all
the way down to South Carolinafound a great community up here
near forest city.
It's called Spindale and um,and so we've been here since
January.
Was was really when we kind ofbroke, opened up and had all our
(01:27):
remodel done, we.
But we purchased the building.
Well, we had a funny story wehad our offer in and then helene
came and then we flew down tomake sure our building was still
standing before we closed itand it was, and we got fortunate
there.
Bill Gilliland (01:40):
I know a lot of destruction down this way yeah,
so how'd you get into thisbusiness in the first place?
Dale (01:46):
Well, I was a banker.
There's several otherbusinesses tied in with the
family that we were working withhere and I helped them get it
started up.
I got them on our board ofdirectors and we'd sit boards
together and he said Dale, youknow, you know the numbers, you
know how to manage people, butyou don't know lumber.
But if you ever want, you andyour wife get tired of your
(02:07):
daytime jobs, let us know, andwe're looking for people to open
up locations and get thingsrocking and rolling for us.
So that's kind of how itstarted.
Bill Gilliland (02:15):
Oh, that's cool, that's that's, that's exciting.
So I know you're relatively new, but is there anything that you
know you would do differently?
Relatively new, but is thereanything that you know you would
do differently?
The actual question is if youhad to start from square one,
what would you do differently?
Dale (02:30):
The only thing I would do differently, I think, at this
point because we try to getinvolved in the communities.
There's a lot of things withHelene coming through.
We work with Rutherford Housingwhere we help with grants and
things like that for anybodythat got hit hard or anybody
that got hit really, they fillit out.
They go through Habitat we workin conjunction with them Is
(02:51):
getting the name out quicker.
I would probably start morecalling efforts a little quicker
.
We started a CRM system, whichis a commercial or customer
relationship manager systemwhere we can track who we went
out and talked with.
We didn't start that probablyuntil four months in, four or
five months in.
I would start that day one justto get the name out there.
Bill Gilliland (03:11):
Yeah, I understand.
So are you guys like a dealerfor Cedar Direct?
Are you an employee, or howdoes it all work?
Dale (03:22):
Well how it works with us.
Um, it's a specialty lumberyard.
We're just part of their threelocation group right now.
Their goal in the end is theyasked me if we would do three of
these stores.
We turned 55 this year.
We're like.
She was a registered nurse,steph was, and I was a chief
credit officer at a local bankand I said, hon, you want to try
(03:42):
something crazy?
And she's like, yep, I said ourkids are out doing their thing.
We, we're sitting pretty good,let's go try something and
explore a little bit.
So we're going to open thislocation, possibly another one
in Idaho and another one in PAand then one back home in
Wisconsin, which is where we'refrom.
Bill Gilliland (03:58):
Got it, got it.
Well, that's exciting, that'sexciting.
So your job is just to get itoff the ground, get it going, or
, and, and, and you know, get,get employees and all that sort
of stuff.
Dale (04:11):
Yeah, kind of get through all the opening up stuff, get
the procedures, the processes inplace, get the yard set up
right.
I worked a couple of years inWisconsin before I came out here
just to understand theiroperations.
Went to Tennessee, went toCanada for Cedar School to learn
about you know we considerourselves the Cedar experts.
(04:32):
You can go to a lumberyard andask them about Cedar.
They might know a little bitbut we know a lot and we got
over, you know, combinedexperience well over probably a
couple hundred years experiencewithin all of the three
locations.
Yeah, that's great.
Probably a couple hundred yearsexperience within all of the
three locations.
Bill Gilliland (04:45):
Yeah, that's great.
So what are some of the biggerlearnings that you've had so far
in all that journey of the lastfew years?
Um?
Dale (04:53):
there's a lot, you know, as a banker, I would tell people
this is what you need to dountil you get out here and do it
.
People getting good, good help.
That you know, cause it's adifferent for me it's it's
forklift driving.
We, you know it's hard to findgood yard people and uh, you
know, and I guess the biggestlearning experience for me is
just getting that net cast outthere so people know we're here
(05:16):
because we were, I mean, peoplewould see us.
We've been advertising socialmedia, facebook, all of that
stuff, radio ads.
We threw a billboard up nearcharlotte, um, so we were
getting people in here.
But until we started reallyreaching out and going out and
meet people and joiningorganizations like the builders
association, blue ridgemountains, uh, we weren't really
reaching out to the the rightpeople that we wanted and we
(05:38):
were getting business and it'sbeen going good.
It's steadily going, going up.
Uh, we're pretty much meetingour projections, so kind of
where we anticipated being, butthe last uh, month and a half,
two months, we've really startedto sprout.
Bill Gilliland (05:51):
so we're we're excited yeah, well, I mean it.
It yeah, it does take a littlewhile.
So, what you know, moving frombanking to this, what are some
of the things that maybe you hadmisconceptions about, or you
think that people havemisconceptions about, opening or
running a new operation?
Dale (06:08):
You know there's a lot of little minutiae, things that you
don't think about, and it goesdown to as low as who's cutting
your lawn.
You know we need.
You know who's doing the pestcontrol.
You know just all these littlethings.
So that's why I brought stephon.
She's the office manager.
She can handle like paying thebills and all these things that
just eat up your time and you.
(06:29):
You know it's better spent forme getting out there networking
and just trying to meet peopleyeah, I understand, I understand
, I understand.
Bill Gilliland (06:37):
So what do you think you attribute the growth
to?
Dale (06:41):
I think there's a demand for cedar in this market.
There's a lot of nice placesgoing up in Asheville, up in the
mountains Swannanoa, blackmount, all those areas and it's
really hard to get Western redcedar around here.
People have been using a lot ofother things.
They'll use ash oak, um,atlantic white cedar and things
(07:03):
like that, but western red's oneof the more superior woods for
longevity bug resistant, youknow, mold, all that stuff and
it's.
It's been a welcomingexperience.
People are excited and whenthey come in and see our store,
we put a showroom up to showthem what we have.
Bill Gilliland (07:18):
Sure, yeah it's awesome, it's awesome.
So how do you balance sort ofthe personal side of things and
the demands of running the newoperation?
Dale (07:35):
For anybody starting a new business business.
You don't have a personal life.
We're working saturdays,sometimes sundays, you know,
just to stay ahead of the game.
But we we do take some tripsback to wisconsin and up into
the mountains.
Bill Gilliland (07:50):
We've done that a few times now okay, yeah,
stuff, you got anything to sayabout that?
Yeah, our daughter just gotmarried a couple of weeks ago,
so we we had two weeks off to govisit her and go to the wedding
and everything.
So that was a nice break.
But now we're back at it.
Yeah, yeah, it it.
(08:11):
I mean I don't think peopleunderstand what it takes to open
a operation.
Until you've done it, it's hardto really understand the
demands and, like you say, sowhat do you?
You said you're having, youknow you're looking for
employees, forklift drivers,that sort of thing.
What qualities do you look forin team members?
Dale (08:33):
You know, when I started this out of after getting out of
banking and it's kind of astressful job I told Steph, I
said you know the next job we do, I really got four things.
One, trust.
That's my biggest thing.
We're, we're it's a familyowned company.
We let family folks work here.
Our, our sales guy who's goingto become the manager, his
daughter works here.
(08:54):
We, we let we do that at all ofour locations.
No lying, biggest thing for meis trust.
With that.
We need, you know, obviously,timeliness and integrity there.
My kind of my golden rules isjust treat others like you want
to be treated.
We don't want the drama in theworkplace.
(09:14):
We want to make a good familywork environment where people
actually want to come to work,and I think we've, uh,
accomplished that.
We have five employees now andwe go out, we do dinners, we, we
try to do things together andand it's, it's awesome, we got a
great spot so I'm curious.
Bill Gilliland (09:33):
uh, I I'm Was involved in a business one time
where a guy came into town,opened a new business.
That was his job to get itgoing.
He stayed, I don't know, ninemonths or a year and then he
went and opened up another one,another location.
And so what?
Is there a playbook for that,or are y'all figuring it out?
Dale (09:53):
We're kind of figuring it out and part of it was is we
left for two weeks and we weregoing up to.
We went up to Wisconsin and Iactually married our kids, I got
ordained and I married them.
But it worked out perfectlybecause these guys have been
coming along great and we justwe got lucky.
We got some guys out here JasonHarrell is going to be our
(10:17):
manager and by finding that guyearly on, it allowed us to get
away and we could kind of testthem, see how they did.
And they did amazing.
The store's still standing whenwe got back.
They were busy.
So yeah, I think I don't knowthat we'll get that lucky every
time, but we have a certainmetric we would like to get to
in sales and once we hit thatI'm going to start.
(10:39):
You know, we're going to startlooking for that next place.
So that's kind of our plan.
Bill Gilliland (10:43):
Yeah well, that's exciting.
They're lucky to have you allthat are willing to like, do the
, you know, do the travelingdeal.
So super cool.
Well, let me.
I have an acronym called BEPIC,that's sort of my tagline, and
so I'm going to give you whatthe letter stands for and you
(11:04):
just give me sort of a quickfire round.
Just give me a couple ofthoughts about what that means
to you.
So B means bring the energy.
You seem to have a lot ofenergy.
Dale (11:17):
Energy feeds everybody, and positive energy specifically
, because negative it'll spreadlike a virus in your shop.
So that's one of the things istreat others like you want to be
treated.
We all got problems, we allhave problems.
Leave them at home when youcome to work.
We're here to work, we're hereto have some fun, and that's
(11:39):
kind of my take on that.
Bill Gilliland (11:40):
Yeah, energy feeds everybody.
I love that, I love that andobviously we want that to be
positive.
So the E stands for education.
Dale (11:50):
We send all of our employees to Cedar School
because we want to be the Cedarexperts.
If you have a question, if wedon't have it offhand, we want
to be able to tell the Cedarexperts.
If you have a question, if wedon't have it offhand, we want
to be able to tell you know, wehave the knowledge in our
company to get an answer for you, probably within an hour or
less.
So that's great.
We educate all of our people.
Matter of fact, the firstcouple of weeks when we start,
we put a showroom up every night, about 15, 20 minutes before
(12:14):
the end of the day.
I'd walk them around and saythis is a V-joint, this is a 1x6
.
This is cedar, this is pine,this is a nickel gap.
We'd go over all of thedifferent aspects of all the
lumber that we carry.
So everybody is consistent andthey understand it well.
Bill Gilliland (12:31):
Yeah, and I love that.
Yeah got to have education.
How about?
P stands for planning?
The P in EPIC is planning.
Dale (12:41):
We did a lot of planning to come down here.
We put together a business plan, we put together projections,
um, and we're in the process ofdoing that for the next
locations, um, along with justsome market research to see, you
know, does it, do we need to bethere, you know?
And so, yeah, planning is a bigpart of it.
One of the owners, he's anaccount, he's a numbers guy, and
then the other owner is ourwood guy and things.
(13:04):
It's just everybody ties intogether and they throw in all
their little bits that help withthe planning aspect of it.
Bill Gilliland (13:11):
Yeah, I love it, I love it.
How about I inspiration?
Dale (13:22):
cedar itself is inspirational.
Pine is fine but cedar issweeter.
You know, once you see the wood, people love it.
It's rich.
There's a, I think, thephilanthropic feel for it.
They they found that they'restarting to put in the hospitals
because it just makes people'shealth better.
It makes them just feel betterbeing part of the nature.
So inspiration is kind of allthat.
And then I love success andthings are going really well.
Bill Gilliland (13:44):
Good and the C stands for commitment.
Dale (13:48):
You've got to be committed , and it's not an eight-hour,
it's not an eight-to-five job.
Once you make that jump or leap, you're in it and we're ready
for that.
So we're definitely committed.
Committed, and everybody hereis I mean everybody, I don't ask
them to do things One of theemployees that we hired, she
grabbed books and she studiedbefore she even started, so she
(14:09):
knew a lot of the things that Iwas going to go over.
So we have a very committedgroup.
Bill Gilliland (14:13):
I love that.
Yeah, I love that.
So what words of advice wouldyou offer to other business
owners who are looking to grow?
Dale (14:23):
Get out and network, you got to meet the people.
People have to know you'rethere.
Once you're there, if you givethem the best customer service
that they can get, treat themwith the best honesty and
integrity and have a goodquality product, it's hard to
beat that.
It gets harder and harder'shard to beat that and that's
really hard.
It gets harder and harder thesedays to find that.
Bill Gilliland (14:43):
Yeah, yeah, it's good.
Get out and meet people.
You got it.
You got to network.
Dale (14:48):
You got to network.
Bill Gilliland (14:49):
Yeah, really Well.
I've been thinking about thisfor a while.
It seems like almost allmarketing really comes down to
networking on some level.
I mean, you might get a lead,but then you got to network to
get you know, to actually get it.
So you know it's great, it'sgreat.
So what's the next big thing?
Dale (15:07):
Well, I'd like to outgrow this yard before I leave and get
a little bit bigger buildingand you know, so they can keep
on trucking.
But I just you know.
Another thing back on your lastquestion is getting involved
with the community too.
I believe is important.
I'm now on the board of theRutherford County Economic
Development Corporation.
Try to help with you know frommy prior knowledge of being a
(15:30):
banker.
I was on boards and we did anEDC group up north.
But just get out there and helpthe community.
If you help people and peoplesee you helping, I think that's
a big part of success as well.
Bill Gilliland (15:41):
No, a hundred percent.
Yeah, I think, uh, and yeah,and we're here in Western North
Carolina, we're really big oncommunity.
So yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
So what's the best way forsomebody to find y'all?
Dale (15:56):
Well, uh, you can Google search us.
Uh, we have a website out therecalled cedardirectcom that has
all of our locations in there.
It has inspirational photos ifyou're looking for projects to
do.
But if you reach out to any ofus or our sales staff, we have
thousands of pictures we cansend you so you can kind of get
some great ideas, kind of likethat Howls or Views app that
(16:21):
people go to to get their ideas.
Bill Gilliland (16:23):
So all the information is out there on
cedardirectcom.
We'll put that in those shownotes and really, yeah, that's
awesome.
Well, listen, fantastic.
Thanks for being part of thecommunity and being part of this
, for part of our podcast, epicEntrepreneurs, and we thank you
for all you're doing locally andit sounds like it's going to
end up being more nationally andthat's exciting, for, I mean, I
(16:45):
think that's good for everybody, right, the more economic
impact we can make.
So certainly wish y'allcontinued success and thanks for
being on the program.
Thank you, bill, thanks anduntil next time.
All the best.
Hey there, welcome to this week's episode
of Epic Entrepreneurs.
I'm Bill Gilliland, your host.
I am the principal at ActionCoach Business Growth Partners
here in Western North Carolinaand I'm also one of the
co-founders of the AshevilleBusiness Summit.
Now I'm excited today becausewe have Dale and Stephanie from
(00:23):
Cedar Direct, and I'll let themtell you what Cedar Direct is.
So welcome to the podcast.
What the heck is Cedar Direct?
Well, thank you, bill.
Dale (00:31):
Cedar Direct is a company.
It's a specialty lumberyard.
Our home base is in Wisconsin.
We ended up a couple yearslater putting a store up in
Chapel Hill, tennessee.
Nobody wanted to drive over theAppalachias so after some
market studies on Western RedCedar and what's selling in the
area, we ended up finding a spotover here in North Carolina.
Bill Gilliland (00:53):
Yeah, well, that's awesome.
So let's dig in a little bit onthe business side of things.
Let me just get your take on, Ilike.
If I mean, uh, how long haveyou been in business?
Dale (01:06):
The company as a whole has been around for 10 plus years.
Um, we just opened up.
While we searched all the lastyear uh, from North Carolina all
the way down to South Carolinafound a great community up here
near forest city.
It's called Spindale and um,and so we've been here since
January.
Was was really when we kind ofbroke, opened up and had all our
(01:27):
remodel done, we.
But we purchased the building.
Well, we had a funny story wehad our offer in and then helene
came and then we flew down tomake sure our building was still
standing before we closed itand it was, and we got fortunate
there.
Bill Gilliland (01:40):
I know a lot of destruction down this way yeah,
so how'd you get into thisbusiness in the first place?
Dale (01:46):
Well, I was a banker.
There's several otherbusinesses tied in with the
family that we were working withhere and I helped them get it
started up.
I got them on our board ofdirectors and we'd sit boards
together and he said Dale, youknow, you know the numbers, you
know how to manage people, butyou don't know lumber.
But if you ever want, you andyour wife get tired of your
(02:07):
daytime jobs, let us know, andwe're looking for people to open
up locations and get thingsrocking and rolling for us.
So that's kind of how itstarted.
Bill Gilliland (02:15):
Oh, that's cool, that's that's, that's exciting.
So I know you're relatively new, but is there anything that you
know you would do differently?
Relatively new, but is thereanything that you know you would
do differently?
The actual question is if youhad to start from square one,
what would you do differently?
Dale (02:30):
The only thing I would do differently, I think, at this
point because we try to getinvolved in the communities.
There's a lot of things withHelene coming through.
We work with Rutherford Housingwhere we help with grants and
things like that for anybodythat got hit hard or anybody
that got hit really, they fillit out.
They go through Habitat we workin conjunction with them Is
(02:51):
getting the name out quicker.
I would probably start morecalling efforts a little quicker
.
We started a CRM system, whichis a commercial or customer
relationship manager systemwhere we can track who we went
out and talked with.
We didn't start that probablyuntil four months in, four or
five months in.
I would start that day one justto get the name out there.
Bill Gilliland (03:11):
Yeah, I understand.
So are you guys like a dealerfor Cedar Direct?
Are you an employee, or howdoes it all work?
Dale (03:22):
Well how it works with us.
Um, it's a specialty lumberyard.
We're just part of their threelocation group right now.
Their goal in the end is theyasked me if we would do three of
these stores.
We turned 55 this year.
We're like.
She was a registered nurse,steph was, and I was a chief
credit officer at a local bankand I said, hon, you want to try
(03:42):
something crazy?
And she's like, yep, I said ourkids are out doing their thing.
We, we're sitting pretty good,let's go try something and
explore a little bit.
So we're going to open thislocation, possibly another one
in Idaho and another one in PAand then one back home in
Wisconsin, which is where we'refrom.
Bill Gilliland (03:58):
Got it, got it.
Well, that's exciting, that'sexciting.
So your job is just to get itoff the ground, get it going, or
, and, and, and you know, get,get employees and all that sort
of stuff.
Dale (04:11):
Yeah, kind of get through all the opening up stuff, get
the procedures, the processes inplace, get the yard set up
right.
I worked a couple of years inWisconsin before I came out here
just to understand theiroperations.
Went to Tennessee, went toCanada for Cedar School to learn
about you know we considerourselves the Cedar experts.
(04:32):
You can go to a lumberyard andask them about Cedar.
They might know a little bitbut we know a lot and we got
over, you know, combinedexperience well over probably a
couple hundred years experiencewithin all of the three
locations.
Yeah, that's great.
Probably a couple hundred yearsexperience within all of the
three locations.
Bill Gilliland (04:45):
Yeah, that's great.
So what are some of the biggerlearnings that you've had so far
in all that journey of the lastfew years?
Um?
Dale (04:53):
there's a lot, you know, as a banker, I would tell people
this is what you need to dountil you get out here and do it
.
People getting good, good help.
That you know, cause it's adifferent for me it's it's
forklift driving.
We, you know it's hard to findgood yard people and uh, you
know, and I guess the biggestlearning experience for me is
just getting that net cast outthere so people know we're here
(05:16):
because we were, I mean, peoplewould see us.
We've been advertising socialmedia, facebook, all of that
stuff, radio ads.
We threw a billboard up nearcharlotte, um, so we were
getting people in here.
But until we started reallyreaching out and going out and
meet people and joiningorganizations like the builders
association, blue ridgemountains, uh, we weren't really
reaching out to the the rightpeople that we wanted and we
(05:38):
were getting business and it'sbeen going good.
It's steadily going, going up.
Uh, we're pretty much meetingour projections, so kind of
where we anticipated being, butthe last uh, month and a half,
two months, we've really startedto sprout.
Bill Gilliland (05:51):
so we're we're excited yeah, well, I mean it.
It yeah, it does take a littlewhile.
So, what you know, moving frombanking to this, what are some
of the things that maybe you hadmisconceptions about, or you
think that people havemisconceptions about, opening or
running a new operation?
Dale (06:08):
You know there's a lot of little minutiae, things that you
don't think about, and it goesdown to as low as who's cutting
your lawn.
You know we need.
You know who's doing the pestcontrol.
You know just all these littlethings.
So that's why I brought stephon.
She's the office manager.
She can handle like paying thebills and all these things that
just eat up your time and you.
(06:29):
You know it's better spent forme getting out there networking
and just trying to meet peopleyeah, I understand, I understand
, I understand.
Bill Gilliland (06:37):
So what do you think you attribute the growth
to?
Dale (06:41):
I think there's a demand for cedar in this market.
There's a lot of nice placesgoing up in Asheville, up in the
mountains Swannanoa, blackmount, all those areas and it's
really hard to get Western redcedar around here.
People have been using a lot ofother things.
They'll use ash oak, um,atlantic white cedar and things
(07:03):
like that, but western red's oneof the more superior woods for
longevity bug resistant, youknow, mold, all that stuff and
it's.
It's been a welcomingexperience.
People are excited and whenthey come in and see our store,
we put a showroom up to showthem what we have.
Bill Gilliland (07:18):
Sure, yeah it's awesome, it's awesome.
So how do you balance sort ofthe personal side of things and
the demands of running the newoperation?
Dale (07:35):
For anybody starting a new business business.
You don't have a personal life.
We're working saturdays,sometimes sundays, you know,
just to stay ahead of the game.
But we we do take some tripsback to wisconsin and up into
the mountains.
Bill Gilliland (07:50):
We've done that a few times now okay, yeah,
stuff, you got anything to sayabout that?
Yeah, our daughter just gotmarried a couple of weeks ago,
so we we had two weeks off to govisit her and go to the wedding
and everything.
So that was a nice break.
But now we're back at it.
Yeah, yeah, it it.
(08:11):
I mean I don't think peopleunderstand what it takes to open
a operation.
Until you've done it, it's hardto really understand the
demands and, like you say, sowhat do you?
You said you're having, youknow you're looking for
employees, forklift drivers,that sort of thing.
What qualities do you look forin team members?
Dale (08:33):
You know, when I started this out of after getting out of
banking and it's kind of astressful job I told Steph, I
said you know the next job we do, I really got four things.
One, trust.
That's my biggest thing.
We're, we're it's a familyowned company.
We let family folks work here.
Our, our sales guy who's goingto become the manager, his
daughter works here.
(08:54):
We, we let we do that at all ofour locations.
No lying, biggest thing for meis trust.
With that.
We need, you know, obviously,timeliness and integrity there.
My kind of my golden rules isjust treat others like you want
to be treated.
We don't want the drama in theworkplace.
(09:14):
We want to make a good familywork environment where people
actually want to come to work,and I think we've, uh,
accomplished that.
We have five employees now andwe go out, we do dinners, we, we
try to do things together andand it's, it's awesome, we got a
great spot so I'm curious.
Bill Gilliland (09:33):
uh, I I'm Was involved in a business one time
where a guy came into town,opened a new business.
That was his job to get itgoing.
He stayed, I don't know, ninemonths or a year and then he
went and opened up another one,another location.
And so what?
Is there a playbook for that,or are y'all figuring it out?
Dale (09:53):
We're kind of figuring it out and part of it was is we
left for two weeks and we weregoing up to.
We went up to Wisconsin and Iactually married our kids, I got
ordained and I married them.
But it worked out perfectlybecause these guys have been
coming along great and we justwe got lucky.
We got some guys out here JasonHarrell is going to be our
(10:17):
manager and by finding that guyearly on, it allowed us to get
away and we could kind of testthem, see how they did.
And they did amazing.
The store's still standing whenwe got back.
They were busy.
So yeah, I think I don't knowthat we'll get that lucky every
time, but we have a certainmetric we would like to get to
in sales and once we hit thatI'm going to start.
(10:39):
You know, we're going to startlooking for that next place.
So that's kind of our plan.
Bill Gilliland (10:43):
Yeah well, that's exciting.
They're lucky to have you allthat are willing to like, do the
, you know, do the travelingdeal.
So super cool.
Well, let me.
I have an acronym called BEPIC,that's sort of my tagline, and
so I'm going to give you whatthe letter stands for and you
(11:04):
just give me sort of a quickfire round.
Just give me a couple ofthoughts about what that means
to you.
So B means bring the energy.
You seem to have a lot ofenergy.
Dale (11:17):
Energy feeds everybody, and positive energy specifically
, because negative it'll spreadlike a virus in your shop.
So that's one of the things istreat others like you want to be
treated.
We all got problems, we allhave problems.
Leave them at home when youcome to work.
We're here to work, we're hereto have some fun, and that's
(11:39):
kind of my take on that.
Bill Gilliland (11:40):
Yeah, energy feeds everybody.
I love that, I love that andobviously we want that to be
positive.
So the E stands for education.
Dale (11:50):
We send all of our employees to Cedar School
because we want to be the Cedarexperts.
If you have a question, if wedon't have it offhand, we want
to be able to tell the Cedarexperts.
If you have a question, if wedon't have it offhand, we want
to be able to tell you know, wehave the knowledge in our
company to get an answer for you, probably within an hour or
less.
So that's great.
We educate all of our people.
Matter of fact, the firstcouple of weeks when we start,
we put a showroom up every night, about 15, 20 minutes before
(12:14):
the end of the day.
I'd walk them around and saythis is a V-joint, this is a 1x6
.
This is cedar, this is pine,this is a nickel gap.
We'd go over all of thedifferent aspects of all the
lumber that we carry.
So everybody is consistent andthey understand it well.
Bill Gilliland (12:31):
Yeah, and I love that.
Yeah got to have education.
How about?
P stands for planning?
The P in EPIC is planning.
Dale (12:41):
We did a lot of planning to come down here.
We put together a business plan, we put together projections,
um, and we're in the process ofdoing that for the next
locations, um, along with justsome market research to see, you
know, does it, do we need to bethere, you know?
And so, yeah, planning is a bigpart of it.
One of the owners, he's anaccount, he's a numbers guy, and
then the other owner is ourwood guy and things.
(13:04):
It's just everybody ties intogether and they throw in all
their little bits that help withthe planning aspect of it.
Bill Gilliland (13:11):
Yeah, I love it, I love it.
How about I inspiration?
Dale (13:22):
cedar itself is inspirational.
Pine is fine but cedar issweeter.
You know, once you see the wood, people love it.
It's rich.
There's a, I think, thephilanthropic feel for it.
They they found that they'restarting to put in the hospitals
because it just makes people'shealth better.
It makes them just feel betterbeing part of the nature.
So inspiration is kind of allthat.
And then I love success andthings are going really well.
Bill Gilliland (13:44):
Good and the C stands for commitment.
Dale (13:48):
You've got to be committed , and it's not an eight-hour,
it's not an eight-to-five job.
Once you make that jump or leap, you're in it and we're ready
for that.
So we're definitely committed.
Committed, and everybody hereis I mean everybody, I don't ask
them to do things One of theemployees that we hired, she
grabbed books and she studiedbefore she even started, so she
(14:09):
knew a lot of the things that Iwas going to go over.
So we have a very committedgroup.
Bill Gilliland (14:13):
I love that.
Yeah, I love that.
So what words of advice wouldyou offer to other business
owners who are looking to grow?
Dale (14:23):
Get out and network, you got to meet the people.
People have to know you'rethere.
Once you're there, if you givethem the best customer service
that they can get, treat themwith the best honesty and
integrity and have a goodquality product, it's hard to
beat that.
It gets harder and harder'shard to beat that and that's
really hard.
It gets harder and harder thesedays to find that.
Bill Gilliland (14:43):
Yeah, yeah, it's good.
Get out and meet people.
You got it.
You got to network.
Dale (14:48):
You got to network.
Bill Gilliland (14:49):
Yeah, really Well.
I've been thinking about thisfor a while.
It seems like almost allmarketing really comes down to
networking on some level.
I mean, you might get a lead,but then you got to network to
get you know, to actually get it.
So you know it's great, it'sgreat.
So what's the next big thing?
Dale (15:07):
Well, I'd like to outgrow this yard before I leave and get
a little bit bigger buildingand you know, so they can keep
on trucking.
But I just you know.
Another thing back on your lastquestion is getting involved
with the community too.
I believe is important.
I'm now on the board of theRutherford County Economic
Development Corporation.
Try to help with you know frommy prior knowledge of being a
(15:30):
banker.
I was on boards and we did anEDC group up north.
But just get out there and helpthe community.
If you help people and peoplesee you helping, I think that's
a big part of success as well.
Bill Gilliland (15:41):
No, a hundred percent.
Yeah, I think, uh, and yeah,and we're here in Western North
Carolina, we're really big oncommunity.
So yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
So what's the best way forsomebody to find y'all?
Dale (15:56):
Well, uh, you can Google search us.
Uh, we have a website out therecalled cedardirectcom that has
all of our locations in there.
It has inspirational photos ifyou're looking for projects to
do.
But if you reach out to any ofus or our sales staff, we have
thousands of pictures we cansend you so you can kind of get
some great ideas, kind of likethat Howls or Views app that
(16:21):
people go to to get their ideas.
Bill Gilliland (16:23):
So all the information is out there on
cedardirectcom.
We'll put that in those shownotes and really, yeah, that's
awesome.
Well, listen, fantastic.
Thanks for being part of thecommunity and being part of this
, for part of our podcast, epicEntrepreneurs, and we thank you
for all you're doing locally andit sounds like it's going to
end up being more nationally andthat's exciting, for, I mean, I
(16:45):
think that's good for everybody, right, the more economic
impact we can make.
So certainly wish y'allcontinued success and thanks for
being on the program.
Thank you, bill, thanks anduntil next time.
All the best.
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