Episode 115 - Scaling with Heart: Don Forsman on 40 Years of Craft, Care & Construction
#115 | Don Forsman | Welch Forsman Associates | Scaling with Heart: Don Forsman on 40 Years of Craft, Care & Construction
After more than four decades in the building world, Don Forsman has seen—and built—it all. In this episode, Don shares how he started with a roofing hatchet and ended up leading one of Minnesota’s most respected custom home firms, Welch Forsman. From hiring philosophies to client psychology, selling his business to learning from mistakes, Don gets honest about the highs, lows, and hard-won lessons that shaped his career.
Listen to the full episode:
About Don Forsman
Don has spent the better part of his life pursuing the work he loves, having started in the trades at age 17. After studying engineering and architecture, he joined Welch Casey in 1985, adding his name to the firm.
Today, as president of Welch Forsman Associates, Don takes great pride in the team of carpenters, woodworkers, cabinetmakers and project managers behind the company. He has a passion for fine design and enjoys seeking out beautiful architecture and art on his travels — and loves canoeing, camping, and motorcycling with family and friends.
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Mark D. Williams 00:00
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Don Forsman 00:32
Mostly, we want to put tools in their hands and see how they operate. And honestly, this might get me in trouble. I generally know when I meet somebody in the first 30 seconds if they're going to be a value to our company or not. They got to have a look in their eyes. They got to have confidence, but not too much, and they need to show curiosity and interest.
Mark D. Williams 00:59
Say, in the curious. Build a podcast we had Don Forsman from Welch sportsman on and really at Minneapolis Ian over 40 years, just listening to Don how he scaled his business, how he's worked with people. But really what comes out the most is just was care and his love of his craft, and just really the relentless pursuit of quality and seeing how he's gotten to the point now where he can sell his business. There's a lot of nuggets in here, regardless of where you're at in your career. Without further ado, here's Don Forsman, welcome to curious builder Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host today, I'm joined in studio with Don Forsman from Welch Forsman, welcome, Don. Well, thank you. We got to know each other over the last year. You're a member of our curious builder collective here locally in Minneapolis, in Minneapolis, and you've kind of been an icon in the building and remodeling world, specifically, and real close to where I live, so I'm down in Lake Harriet real just a couple miles from your shop. And you know, we had a couple of mutual friends put us together for coffee a year ago, and the collective started shortly after. And sure enough, here's Don and and that's been really fun just to now we have kind of a what our monthly coffee brains and builder brews, or what do we call
Don Forsman 02:06
it? Yeah, whatever it is, yeah, it's good time. Well, I wanted to capture
Mark D. Williams 02:09
your story. You recently sold your company, and I really wanted to take a time. And a lot of times we have people on the show, we talk a lot about scaling and growing, and you've been there, done that. You started 19? Was at 85 you can look back with a lens that a lot of us can't and say, Hey, this is how I grew. This is how it scaled. These are a lot of mistakes that I made. This is where I'm at today. And and then we'll talk a little bit about how somebody sells the company, and you're still, I guess you get one chance to learn that one. Yeah, right. Well,
Don Forsman 02:37
I know a couple people who had a couple chances. Yeah, it's a lot to learn. Yes, for sure, and just like this industry, there's a lot to learn, a lot to and I'm glad that you're sharing some of this with others. I think we should be, you know, rising all boats, as they say. This company started, actually in 1982 Welch Casey construction was incorporated. That was Pete Welch and Tom Casey. They had a company that they started, a C Corp, which is unheard of these days. And I threw some mutual friends, after kicking around the industry for five, six years, tied up with them and started working together. And by 85 I was a 33% partner, and the really the company, has grown organically from three people who really, honestly knew little to between 35 and 40. Now we added a cabin shop, woodworking shop. Along the way, there's been a it's been organic growth. It's been mostly driven by my particular desire to try and do the best work out there. And you can keep really good, talented people on your staff, as long as you keep them interested. And right now, we're doing some things that maybe are too interesting and challenging, but every project seems to bring up one of those things that's unique to us. We just built a fire pole, but a round door that goes all the way around. These are just things you don't see in your average house. So it's you'll be seeing that on Instagram coming up here. We got a few videos of that. I mean, we were talking about
Mark D. Williams 04:22
when we'll get into this, maybe a little bit later, about the science of building. There's a lot, most of us don't go to school to be builders, very few, actually. And yet, you learn on the trades, you learn on the job. You learn through experience. You learn through making a lot of mistakes. But there's also science and art, because you just hit a flagpole that is, that is the, literally, the meeting point of science and art right there, because,
Don Forsman 04:43
yeah, we do a lot of that kind of thing, and it is really important. And the science, the science of building his in my career, my God, it's went from nothing to some really horrible science experiments in the early 80s with energy codes that. I give a lot of credit to the guys that were pushing these energy codes and the new science, but the legislature wouldn't push it all through. So that means we had these pockets of you do it 100% great system. You do it 20% at a time you have, let's challenging climate we build in here. I would recommend to anybody out there to find another climate building. I mean, the minus 20, the plus 100 and it's, it's crazy, and we need to be smart. And there's, unfortunately, we can't always believe the manufacturers are providing these things. We have to test them, and we have to know, and we have to try. And you're right. We learn by our mistakes, and there's lots of them.
Mark D. Williams 05:47
I think one of the things that the world that I operate in now and the one that you're exiting, is much more communicative than it was over your 40 year career. Is that accurate? Yeah, very Yes. I mean, now, for instance, we're going to do zip R 12 on our we have this Misa who's spec home that we're doing in cottage, which I'm really excited about. And I'd want to get as much exterior insulation talk about science and some of the differences there. But I had, I didn't know anyone here locally that had done it, and so I asked Huber's the manufacturer. And so I asked the zip guys, I said, Hey, can you give me in contact with someone that has done this? And they gave me a number of someone, number of somebody out in Connecticut or Massachusetts. I should know their name, but apologies. Thank you for being helpful. And I called them, and he gave me a half hour of his time, and we talked about it in detail. I think that that spirit of collaboration and interest in like you're trying to do new things. I feel like the world we live in is much more collaborative
Don Forsman 06:39
that way. I agree it certainly I feel like early in my career, it was just butting heads with every competitor, and you kept everything in house and close to the vest. And that's changed a lot, and it's great because it's, it's a difficult industry. It just is, especially for a lot of us. When I started, we were in it because we were going to college, or we didn't feel like we could go to college and do anything else. We couldn't hold a regular job, so we got into construction. And that's true of a lot of people that I've worked with over time, creative, wonderful talent, people, they don't fit the norm, and the more that we can school people up from from labors, through business owners, I think would be a good thing for everybody. I think there's some really unfortunate buildings that have been built and continue to be built without preparing for what this climate can do for us, to us,
Mark D. Williams 07:42
when you back in 1983 and then 85 you're what? Just painting the picture. You're in your mid 20s, young 20s, like, how old are you at this time when you decided you wanted to get into the building world?
Don Forsman 07:51
Well, I got into the building world. Actually, I was 17, just graduated high school on my way to engineering school at the U of M, buddy mine's cousin, was a Shingler, and I spent that summer, and then the next three shingling new houses up in Blaine. That's back when they paid by the piece, so $4 a square to nail down shingles with a nail and a roofing hatchet, not a stapler. So that's where it started. I love the industry. I worked 40 hours a week and went to school full time for three years. And Jen realized that I still picture one of the days early in my career. A couple weeks in I was on top of a roof up Blaine, middle of nowhere. I'm on my own. I got a job to do, Mount side shirt off, and I just remember it as it's still vivid in my I love this stuff, and so kept doing more of it, worked into drywall, worked into cabinetry, and then eventually I was a carpenter wearing bags for more than 20 years. So
Mark D. Williams 08:58
so even when you were owner, you were still strapped on the bags. And, yep,
Don Forsman 09:02
I was back in the days when, yeah, I will say that I was standing around a lot, not using the tools in my bag during the latter part of that career, but that we didn't have PMS and things like that. It was a business owner, couple of carpenters, a bunch of friends who know how to paint and, yeah, seriously, it was a different world.
Mark D. Williams 09:24
It's interesting because, and this would just be anecdotally, I don't I'm just, I'll put my point of view. So without spending a ton of time and wasting everyone's time listening to, like, write it down, but like, if I had to put down a number, let's just say I picked 30 builders that I'm friends with. How many of them could do construction at a high level? For me, for my friend group, including myself, which is zero like I'm that's not my skill set, never an interest. But that's not where I'm going with this question is, I bet it's less than three out of 30 that could actually do building. And I don't know if that's good or bad. It's just an observation. Again, it's
Don Forsman 10:01
probably good. I mean, there are plenty of people out there that know how to build, and not very many people who know how to build didn't know how to run a business. Honestly, I've, over the years, I've had dozens of people on our staff that used to be business owners, but they had the skills for their craft, but really just got tired of being a business owner because your evenings are being a business owner after you're doing your work all day long, right? So a lot of people have come to us, and you know, it's a great thing to relieve them of that so they can simply do their craft. And I think it's, this is like, I say it's a complex, big business now, and people should know how to run a business on that's was never my strong suit. I'm really good with numbers, big, round numbers, but I really just wanted to build and so if you're the way I did that was hire people who could do the things that I couldn't, the accounting, the change, all of the business work, the insurance lawyers, etc, etc. Because when we started, there was no state licensing. There was no insurance mandate from the state of Minnesota. It was the Wild West back then. If you could, I can remember doing so many jobs on a handshake. We didn't have, or if we did, we didn't know that there were requirements by the state to have a contract that has X, Y and Z in it. Now you know, our contracts are 75 page, so before the addendum, yeah, yeah, right. So I think that, I think this industry warrants good, smart business people minds.
Mark D. Williams 11:51
I've said it many times in the podcast, and it was something that my dad told me who was a builder early on. He said, You could be a good builder and bad at business, and you won't make it. You could be a bad builder and good at business, and you'll make it, and hopefully you're good at both. And I didn't at the time I was a high school what did I know about that and and, I mean, the whole point of this podcast is more so, not on the technical side. Well, we certainly have experts on that can speak to that. It's more about the business education. And, you know, I had a conversation the other day with someone who owns a solar company. We're talking about our clients same kinds of issues. We're talking about hiring people, same kinds of issues. We're talking about business development and relationship same type. I say this argument that 70% of what everybody does is the same, it's the 30% specialization, like I'm holding up this water bottle. I mean, they've got a brand market and sell it and manufacture. I mean, sure they don't have as many moving pieces as construction, but entrepreneurship is actually very relatable. And I think as business people, as you, as you start getting, most people don't get into building because they're like, I'm great at business. I'm gonna be a builder. It says nobody ever if you did you were smarter than us. You start with like, this is cool. I'm outside. I get to build something, I create something. And I don't know, taking anything away from that passion, because I think that's why we stay in it and why we love it. But it seems like the learning and the education on business comes either one of two ways, by seeking it out, or the school of hard knocks, as they say, and probably a little bit of
Don Forsman 13:18
both. Yeah, and I don't advocate for the school of hard knocks. After 40 years in this, I've had enough hard knocks, and there's many better ways to do this. And really, again, I applaud you for raising the level, general contractor, building contractor. Those have not been friendly words for most of my career, you know. And some of it's well deserved. There are contractors out there who are good at business and not necessarily a building. And I never wanted to be that. And I wish there weren't so many. I'd rather teach the rest of the industry how to build right I have the good fortune of seeing projects that I did 1520, 25 years ago, and they still look sweet. And I can't think of a better thing to be able to do. And people are happy, because I think the space that people live in is really important to their quality of life. And not everybody believes that, but I do, and so I get to do it when, when we can. So
Mark D. Williams 14:18
I think the Pat one thing that I've always really enjoyed. And even as a young kid running around the job sites is seeing people seeing that there's a lot of satisfaction with who you work with, and seeing the framers interact with the mechanicals and the electrical and just it's a big family. It's a big fraternity. And I know that, you know, I think we were able as a early on in my career, but I didn't have as many PMS as I do now, and not that I have that many now, but like, I think I was able to out punch my weight because our subcontractors were like a family. It became that the framer would call, you know, the electrician. And I say that, like, hopefully a lot of builders listening to this roll their eyes and like, well, everyone does that. I'm I hope that's the case, but I know it's not, because a lot are like, I'm here to do my. Job. You do your job, stay out of my way. Like that's not how a family operates, and that's not how you build a home. The best way possible, and mutually respecting each other's work and so much of life, in some ways, comes out in a home, and watching them interact, and watching how they all tug of war, everyone pulling at the same time in the same direction. You can do a lot. Yeah,
Don Forsman 15:21
it really, and it really takes that teamwork. Part of our tag line is collaboration, and that's, that's from the very day one, with customers and architects and designers all the way through all of the people. It's very incredible to watch. We've got teams of people have been working together for a decade or more. And it's really, it's a dance. It's a dance that might get rained on or snowed on or whatever else. It can be really messy, but everybody's focused toward that same end result, and can't ask for anything more, really.
Mark D. Williams 15:54
You know, I know where you are now, but you do incredible projects. Seems like everyone is very architect and design forward, was that really from the beginning, or walk me through the maturation process of where you started to where you realized, we've talked about this before in the past weeks, of just really you knew a lot of your clientele correct. If I'm wrong, it's word of mouth, and it's relationships that you've built with architects that know that they can trust you to carry not only their vision, but really take care of their clients. And so you've created this great not feeder system, but just relationship network. Walk me a little through, like, at what point did you realize that was either the route? Were you doing it intentionally, or did it happen because your pursuit of doing high quality work just led to that?
Don Forsman 16:39
Yeah, it was an interesting path. Early on, we actually, the three of us, early on, we did some ti work, some tenant improvement. One of my partners, Tom, was incredibly just loved the pace of commercial work kind of drove me crazy, because tenant improvement for businesses, that's how fast you can do it. How fast, how cheap? Well, that not didn't turn my gears. I was good at being fast, but they didn't give you time to be really good. So through that time, we met Tom Meyer at Meyer Sharon Rockcastle. He's kind of one of my heroes out there in the industry. I just love his work and and early on, he had a, you know, a commercial client of his, wanting to build a house on Lake of the Isles. And we had the opportunity. And that was one of our was one of our early forays into architectural work. And he's a master, as far as I'm concerned. Along the same time, our painting group had a relative, Daryl Hansen. He was at Leonard Parker for a bit, went on his own. He's a prairie style, the most precise architect I've ever worked with. Incredible we would get, we never started a job until it's completely drawn. And would have they were hand drawn back on those days, five or six lines of dimensions, dimensioning everything, and we just love to build his stuff. It's where we learned precision, and it's where we learned the art of architecture from him, and then from there, it was just pursuing, still, what I've done is pursuing architects that I think I've seen built some beautiful things, and go see if we can work with them. And and there's our job is hard enough. I know you do some design build and lots of design build that I'm running into in the collective, and I like the three legged stool. I think our job is hard enough, just as contractors. I'd rather have the architect and design team on as another leg, and the homeowners as being in, at the very least writing checks and otherwise being involved as they want to create their dream. But I like the tension between the three. I've always enjoyed that about working with architects. They're always pushing for the best from their professional perspective. And I, I don't, I would never have tried the design build thing, even though consider it a couple times, just because I want that separate voice. I like the three separate voices. And
Mark D. Williams 19:12
we actually don't do any design build. I agree with you that wasn't, I think early on, I shouldn't say that we would have, there's drafts people and draftsmen and home designers and architects and all these different layers. And so we've dabbled with all of them at different points of time, and self design and interior design at the point of career I'm at now it's, obviously, we have architecture partners, we have interior designers. And again, I'm a big team guy in the sense then, like, you know, guessing for non singer, here's my music analogy is like Pavarotti is, like, one of the world's best singers, right? Sure, no one, one on one can beat that guy singing. Give me 100 people singing, and a choir you won't even hear him. And I believe in the assist in the choir approach. And I think that, and I agree with you. We had a meeting the other day with an architect, a very seasoned designer, and the staff. And like, I like. Use the word tension. I like different points of view that everyone and it's not in contrast to a negative effect. It's contrast for positivity. And I tell my clients when I interview them, if they come to me first, I usually say, you don't want a bunch of yes men and women around you, because then we're just building. Are you an expert, builder and designer and designer and architect? No, you're not. That's why you're hiring the team. And so Don's gonna have a good idea. Linda's gonna have a great idea. Bob's gonna have a good idea. Sally, it doesn't. It's that team approach. And if we can all respect each other enough and push back, I've always been under the impression like, if you really care about it, like you will speak up, and you'll be passionate about it. And there are some things that some people are really passionate about, and sometimes I'll be like, you know, that's not my sword to die on. Like, I'll give my two cents, but, like, No, I'm okay with that one. But then sometimes you're like, you know what? As the builder, like, for instance, I've never put a skylight in a home, and that doesn't mean I won't, but man, do I try hard to not have a skylight in a home, because you're literally cutting a hole in my roof. We're supposed to get the water out of the house, and someone thinks it's gonna need to put a hole in my roof. I understand there's amazing products, I just am very biased about putting it. Hey, let's sail a ship, but let's cut a hole in the bottom of it before we leave the harbor. I mean, come on, people, what are we doing here? So anyway, that's that is one of my soapbox moments. I don't know if you agree or disagree on that, but I music. This episode is brought to you by adaptive. If you're still chasing checks and juggling spreadsheets, it's time to upgrade. Adaptive is revolutionizing how builders get paid with AI powered bill pay, automated draws, one click payments and built in lien waivers, Faster Payments, fewer headaches and total visibility. Adaptive takes care of the back end chaos, so you can focus on what you do best, building. We've used adaptive for two and a half years, and trust them to keep our projects moving and payments flowing. Learn more at Adaptive dot build and simplify the Pay Process today. For more information, you can also listen to episode 10 and episode 15.
Don Forsman 22:01
Actually, I'm less worried about water from the outside than I am water vapor on the inside. This climate we have everything's a challenge. The point then water is, yeah, bulk water
Mark D. Williams 22:11
probably is not one of my high points. You're right. It's the moisture and thermal barriers and all the stuff that we have to deal with.
Don Forsman 22:17
Yeah, yeah. I, you know, when I first started this, we were working mostly with commercial architects, because there weren't 1983 or four or five, there weren't very many residential architects. And now we have dozens and dozens. We have a lot of talent. Great talent. Yeah, absolutely. But back then, they were commercial architects, and it was challenging for us because as a rule, they they always were right and weren't that open to other people's interpretation. But you gain their respect, and you just keep moving on. And now I think sometimes almost has gone too far. I'll get careful what I say here now, where everything is an option, everything can be custom. 15 years ago, you stained your hardwood floor out of one of 15 cans of stain, and now we're doing all kinds of crazy things to get that perfect color. And it just goes through every single aspect of what we're doing, which is hard on decision makers. So you really need, there's a lot of decisions to make on a house.
Mark D. Williams 23:31
You know, it's funny to say that I, I know some builders that like to build spec homes because, and they'll say this, and I think they Well, there's some silver lining in it, but they like, well, I can make all this decision. I have to rely on a client. And then there's predominantly what I've done, which is not spec home building and just have the client work with the team, and it's we're building their home. There's less risk, obviously, but theoretically, there's more work. I think it was good for me to get back into building this one spec home that I'm really passionate about is kind of relat by fire, and just really excited to do something new and be creative about it, but the amount of time and intention, and I forgotten, I always know there's a lot of decision makes, but it's really the design team and the client, and they work through this process. But like I'm telling you, man, as a builder, if you don't do spec homes, maybe do one every once a decade, and remind yourself of like there is a tremendous amount of to really be thoughtful and to be involved with all of it. And I set aside basically a day a week for a year. That's my plan, not only to deal with it, but also to heavily market it, but talk about it. And now I'm into the we've designed it for the last four or five months, but now I'm into the selling and marketing side, which I love, and that's easy to do, but I guess my point, I think it takes a lot more time than we think, and I think as a builder, I should just speak for myself, I have forgotten just how involved it is to be the client, and now I am the client, my own client, and I'm just like, wow, I forgot. How many it seems like I should know that. But like, it's kind of like, you know, you ran, you run marathons your whole life, and then you take 20 years off, and then you go run a marathon again. Wow, I forgot how hard running a marathon is. But like, I don't know if that resonates with you at
Don Forsman 25:12
all, absolutely. Actually, my wife Bev and I are designing a little retirement home that we're gonna build soon. It's only 1400 square feet. We both just got exhausted. We decided, Okay, we're gonna take a little time. I'm gonna set this aside. And part of the problem with us is that she's seeing the work we do, and I know the work we do. And if you thought there were a few options, there's actually an endless number of options on every single thing. So we're taking a little break from that. I'd also like to explore some out of the box kind of or outside the box things to do in that house. I want to create a space that we can spend time in being careful with how we build it, how long it's going to last, and use some unique products, and I think so that that that's another whole bunch of decisions that I'd rather take my our time doing. But yes, it's an incredible and you really homeowners should know us, but we've talked about this before. Most, most people were built building for this is their one, their one time. I built for some customers, three or four times, but they're coming into this green they're going to spend 10 or 20 or 30 times what they spend on their most expensive car, which was a hard enough, probably thing to do anyway, and and there's a lot to know, and they don't even know who to trust. I think, I mean, it's a hard position to be in. I think
Mark D. Williams 26:42
the thing that we can do as professionals, and the people that we interview, you know, with them, to really sort of set them at ease, is just letting them know that, hey, we've got this. We've got either a process, obviously, which continues to evolve as technology changes and team people you know, change. But also, I think, to me, temperament and personality is super important. I asked someone the other day that, if they were, if you could be in another position or another job, what was your lifetime? I'll ask you, what do you think you your career would have trained you for if you were in another field of work, what would you be? What would you be good at? What do you think building and working with clients and managing teams like? What do you think you're qualified now? If you could go back to be 23 year old with all the knowledge you have now, but you couldn't pick building, what do you think you'd be good
Don Forsman 27:35
at? Well, and fortunately, as you know, I think being a psychologist is critical.
Mark D. Williams 27:41
That was exactly the answer of the other Bell there. Because, yeah, yeah,
Don Forsman 27:46
there's so much to do there. And I guess what I really enjoyed, though, is the engineering of fine things to get to a point where it looks like it does on our projects. There's a lot of engineering going on, and I was always an engineering math student, so it's always turned my gears. But that's more critical than people think. I like to use the I don't know how long it was that suddenly stone countertops were everywhere, even in apartment complexes and everything. And it's interesting. On the sales pitch, there's stone countertops, and then you go in and see what a joint looks like, or edge detail or an overhang that's not the same stone countertop. Or putting in somewhere else, there's always a degree of beauty to something, and as I've told people before, until it's installed, it's not anything. It's not you could say it just delivered on the on the curb, and it looked perfect. But it's not installed yet, so you can't tell it's that it's perfect right now. It needs work and that and crafts people bring that to its rightful conclusion, but it's not just a stone countertop. It's at a well installed and finished and fabricated. So there are differences in what we do. I
Mark D. Williams 29:10
think that's like I think people skills. I think you develop incredible people reading skills through all the interactions with people, because you're interacting intimately in people's homes, and because of the gravity of what they're spending and their investment in it, it's high stakes as well. But you're managing husband and wife relationships. Your relationships subs relationships. I mean, it's just a lot of people. It's a lot of people, people power.
Don Forsman 29:36
Have you been in that kitchen when the couple isn't really getting along. Ian, want to bring their dirty laundry. That's one of my favorites. Anyway, there is a lot to the relationship business, and it's not the easiest part of our job. And that's one of the things that I really like about hearing from other builders, is that sometimes you can think, what am I doing wrong? This customer is just not. Happy so everybody else has the same customers. Has nothing to do with me. It has to do with the building process or perhaps their own lot in life. But yeah, it's not us,
Mark D. Williams 30:12
No, and it's hard because I think most people are conscientious. I have a meeting tomorrow with a homeowner, and I'm not looking forward to it. I know it's going to be a difficult conversation, and what's a cost plus contract? And usually in these situations, they the benefits of a cost plus contract is it shifts some of the risk, not all the risk, to the client. They're saying, hey, in exchange for seeing everything and having some part to play in that, we are accepting some of the overages. It's a little bit like that. If you sat down with them and said, If it's over, you pay, but if it's under, you get the credit. And they want to hold, they want to operate on a cost plus, but they want you to operate lights a fixed bid. And you're laughing, because I know you've probably dealt with this, and it's just, it's it does it is stressful, because we take, I'm speaking for the industry, but I know I take a lot of the stress of that conversation we're going to have tomorrow to heart, because we are conscientious. We do care about what we do, and we want them to have a good experience. And in some ways, it'd be, I wish I didn't care. It'd be way easier. But then I went, you wouldn't be who you are. You can't really do that, but it's, it's a very I think you see people burn out. I mean, I was burned out two years ago. I mean, honestly, and I've mentioned this before, but the cures builder podcast not resurrected my career, but really gave me like the I needed a refill emotionally, and realized talking to other builders like you across the country and every business owner, really, and be like, Oh, okay, it's not just me after 21 years, no, you you kind of need a oil change and a remodel, and, You know, a mindset change, and now you kind of get ready to it. In your career, did you find that you had certain points where you were sort of burned out? And how did you get past it?
Don Forsman 31:52
Yeah, many times, in retrospect, probably gave way too much to the business, both my my mental health and my time, but somewhat worth it. I think I've always been intrigued by the next thing that we get to build, and I've been through too many recessions to recall, and too many presidential elections to recall, and all those times are really hard on an industry, and that's when I've mostly been tired of it, or we're scrambling to keep people busy and taking work that we shouldn't take. That's some wisdom I would like to share is I think you start going down the wrong path, and you'll never get off a bit. So it's important to take the work that is ideal for your situation, but when there's a recession, or when there's a big town downturn, or, you know, I don't think any of us have recognized yet what COVID did to us mentally in at least in this industry. That was the busiest time in the last 15 years for us, but it was also the most stressful, 35 people on staff, and not knowing I read, I spent more time reading things about COVID than I did about how to build stuff, and it was a challenging time. And I don't know that, you know, maybe that was part of your situation getting burnt out. It was, I don't know,
Mark D. Williams 33:18
but maybe, I mean, I think sometimes you, you know, you everyone has had great employees. Some people have more challenging ones. So there's that side of it as well. There's your personal life, there's your professional life. There's sometimes it coincides with a difficult client, once in a career, difficult client on top of a difficult employee. So you get some of these things that serve our force multipliers, and you're just like, whoo. I mean, you do have to have, I mean, luckily, I think what drives a lot of us is kind of, I don't know if it's my ADHD or what, but like, I kind of, maybe it's, I can forget stuff very easily. I'm kind of, I'm always kind of excited about the next thing. Sure, I think I'm my temperament is probably uniquely set up for having a short memory and very optimistic. I think it's what makes me good at remodeling, frankly, is because I can walk into any home, maybe home that should be torn down like my own. I actually built a house at Lynn hills. I remodeled it. Laugh after I'm like, oh, man, I should have tore that thing down. Man, did I remodel that thing? That thing was a mummy going into the grave, and I made it a princess. So that was not a good move. Been there, done that, yeah, but you I learned a lot from that. I, in fact, I use that example. I have this rule of three, that if you do three remodels on a house, that's not a remodel that's a tear down, and, or, if you can't tell me what we're saving, that's not a remodel that's a tear down. And I don't have a I don't have a objective here, like, I'm happy to remodel it. I don't have to build No. And there are sometimes, like, I haven't worked on a ton of historical stuff, like, I understand, hey, it's historical. There's some other things at play here. Yes, it's more expensive than a new home, so, but it's still, you know, should be remodeled if the client wants it, totally get that. But if you're asking me for like, what do I think the best value is? Or what, what are you gonna get the most out of it? There are certain times where clients will say, hey, what do I do here? Or a lot of clients will come to us and say, Hey, we're gonna buy. At this house, this is what we want to turn it into. And I'll look at them and I'll be like, what in this house is looks like anything like that house or not looks but like they're not even remotely the same. Which is fine. I can do the work that's easy. That's actually not the hard part. The question is, how much money do you want to invest in it? And what's a better investment? And that's just a conversation. That's where our experience comes in. And you educate, for sure.
Don Forsman 35:21
And nobody should take away the value of a historic structure. We often like them a lot, because Hunter built with studs from the 1880s with really tight growth rings. You know, there's all of those things. In fact, I really learned the carpentry trade working early my career for a woman in around Lake of the isles, Elizabeth Hyatt. And as her hobby, she used to buy these big old mansions, and we would strip them down to nothing. And most of what I learned about carpentry was from taking apart old buildings and seeing how they got put together in 1890 1900 1910 there's a lot of value there, and a lot of the woodworking we do now still same, sure we have electricity helps a lot, but a lot of the same, excuse me, kind of joinery, the same hand tools. That's really where I got my deep interest in the beauty of old buildings, and we, most of our, most of our 40 some years has been remodeling. I love it. Part of the reason we opened our first shop was to get all the knives to run all of the moldings that are in South Minneapolis. I think we probably have a knife for every piece of molding that's in a house in South Minneapolis now, and those are important things. It's in Elizabeth always That house was going to look when we were done like it did when it was built. That was very challenging but very rewarding as well. I know be there another 100 years. I love
Mark D. Williams 36:58
that dedication to the craft. I think I used to joke with my because I've lived in Minneapolis now for 20 plus years, and my homes have been like 1919, 1905, I keep remodeling them, and they're great. Like you said, the foundation. And sometimes you wonder the new homes we build, I mean, their latest technology and all this stuff. But we don't really know. I'd be very curious. 100 years from now, how will they hold up compared to the ones that we remodel? I don't know. We'll see
Don Forsman 37:21
what happens. Yeah, we'll see what happens. I It's hard to keep up with the times, and it's hard to add the new technologies to an old house, and we tear apart new houses that have horrible things that have happened to them, that an old house never happened to but you're also heating the outside of the house while you're heating the inside. So, you know, pluses and minus. You just have to keep on top of it, because that's not going to change. All right. We need to be efficient and we need to be smart. We need to be use the best practices we can.
Mark D. Williams 37:57
This episode is brought to you by Pella, windows and doors. I've used Pella for 21 years as the exclusive window company on every one of my builds. When people ask me who I trust for windows and doors, it's Pella every time. Their craftsmanship, their innovation, the top tier service, make them a no brainer for any custom home builder or designer who demand the best, whether you're designing something bold or building something with timeless elegance, Pella has you covered. They're also the only window company that has a lifetime warranty on all of their windows. I've gotten to know all their people at Pella corporate, as well as locally. Here at Pella Northland, I'm proud to call them our partners and our friends. Visit pella.com to learn more and connect with your local reps. Today for more information, you can also listen to episode one, where I interview the Pella Northland founders, as well as episode 109 where we talk all about their latest innovation with the study set window shifting just a little bit. You had mentioned this once before, and I found it very amusing. We when you go through process of hiring people and you're like, Oh, does this project manager fit? And how do I know if they're a good fit or gonna hire project coordinator, and one of the things I envy, because you have a lot of people on your team that self perform, is you have a very easy way of hiring. You want to share your process,
Don Forsman 39:12
since I'm no longer part of the HR department, I probably can share some things. But you know, having hired so very many people over the years that you know, and many could talk a good game. And it's funny, there's somebody on her staff right now who really could not talk a good game, but he's turning on to be one of the best carpenters that I've had in a long time. But mostly we want to put tools in their hands and see how they operate. And honestly, this might get me in trouble. I generally know when I meet somebody in the first 30 seconds if they're going to be a value to our company or not, they got to have a look in their eyes. They got to have confidence, but not too much, and they need to show curiosity and interest. It's really all it takes. We can train. Just about anybody to do most things, as long as they come in with an open mind. We do things. We do a lot of things different than other builders to particularly to prep for remodel, building lines, data on lines, making a house plum level and square. These are all things that we've worked on for decades. And we have systems at work, and I need, I need people to I not bend their will, but understand why we believe in it, and that's why we do that. So an open mind coming in our company with an open mind, and there are no doors going to be shut, but I also know that I can just some people. You can just tell they don't they want to do their thing and go home and have a beer. It's kind of the tradition and construction is sacrifice your your body and your time and trying to enjoy the rest of it. And we still do all those things, but we want to have a end result that everybody can really be happy about. It's It's surprising how easy it is to please creative people by giving them something creative to do, you know, and it doesn't really matter the hourly wage or or the other things. It's important working with people that heading the same direction as you are. And there's always new, some something new to learn in this industry, I'm sure, you know, I
Mark D. Williams 41:31
think that, I think ownership. I think one thing that's always really exciting is when people take ownership of a craft or a part, or, you know, they take pride and in what they do. And I have a gentleman who's been on my team for 1213, years. It's a contractor, and he's probably one of our best ones. He has a slow fuse, but when it does blow it, it's a good one. And so I get a call maybe every six, seven years, and he called me their day, and he said, My, my give a darn is broken. And he said, I, you know, I I sweat and I bleed, and I do so much for this to happen, and I look around and the sub, or that sub, or someone else, just, you know, my give a darn is broken. I can't I can't care this much anymore because the caring, but that's what makes him so good, and that's why I'll go to battle with him on every home, because it's all the things I don't see your earlier comment, you have a skill set that I don't have, but I can say that I very much appreciate and have a lot of gratitude to the people on my team that do and I try personally as a builder. What can I do? Obviously, I can go get work. I can market. I do something for them in terms of bringing repeatable work. And I don't think it's a devaluing statement to say you can't do something. I think understanding who you are and what you do, whatever it might be, and just trying to be the best and just keep improving that is enough. And you know, I have many people that will say, you know, you didn't realize you did this, but how you treated us, or how you asked us, and I think when you ask people that are on your team or that you employ or that you work with, I love asking them for their opinion. A it's easy because I don't know the answer. In some ways, it's been very, I've been very, I've been able to walk into that one quite easily and just say, you know, Hey, Don you know someone will have a cabinet trim scribe question. Like, I don't have any idea how to do that. Don, this was my golden question. This is the, I mean, I don't know I could, if this is your home, how would you what would you do? And I'll live with probably whatever you say, because you're, you're the expert in this scenario. I'm not me. And obviously, after doing this for a long time, you kind of know some people you know be giving you real or not. But I think to your point about engaging people with curiosity, and I think putting their self worth in it. I was talking to, actually, I had Rick Kendall on the podcast recently, and he I was talking about for this misuse project. I saw another builder do this in another state. I'm going to have a house signing party everyone that's worked on the house up until that point, I'm going to give them all magic markers. Want to walk around the house, and we're going to sign. It could be quotes, it could be verses in the Bible, whatever something means to you that someday, some somewhere, this wall is going to be open for a remodel down the road. Put your name on it. You built this house with as a team. And Rick said that he got a call from Sven Gustafson from Stonewood. And when Rick was in high school, he framed an attic, and the builder that he was working with said, hey, sign this. And looks like no one's ever going to see this. Here it is 30 years later, Sven sends a picture, and it had Rick handles name, and that's pretty cool. Well, then what is the odds that I mean it just that's a really cool, easy story that a lot of people in Minnesota will know some of these names for those that not the concept obviously still works. But at what I like about it here locally, it's a way to show ownership for the people that are working on your home. And I think that speaks to the broader culture of Unfortunately, our culture does not value people that get in the trades. I think there's a stereotype against them. I've certainly felt that and done whatever I can to sort of combat that. And I think that narrative is changing. I
Don Forsman 44:58
do too. I think there's a lot of people working. On it, and I hope it continues. It partly be helped by, you know, I'm, I'm of a generation. There's a lot of there's a lot of crafts that are just leaving us, plaster, stone masons, the brick masons, lot of woodworking. It's going away. People are just, frankly, leaving they're aging out. And so I just, I think that just by the demographics, finding those people to do this work, which, AI isn't going to build your house, so there'll be more people getting into it, and I hope I'm around long enough to kind of help shepherd that in. I don't know, but it's a in a lot of ways. It's a great industry. It is very creative on almost every level. And those who like that similar story, we moved to solar house couple years ago and moved to apartment in northeast and that building is covered in photos of the guys during construction, and all the suites are named after somebody who was on the construction crew. That's cool. And and the building is full of artwork from northeast Minneapolis artists. So that's the kind of respect I hope to just Garner for those doing this work, there's a lot of value in that. Again, I was a carpenter for a long time, and known a lot of carpenters. It's not that hard to keep them happy, little recognition, some donuts, some pizza. I mean, all these, and it doesn't take much, because they're loving what they're doing. But also, want to get some respect, a couple perks out of the deal.
Mark D. Williams 46:42
I had a trimmer for a long time I worked with and he works for another remodeler now Todd. A shout out to him, but he used to sit on a job with he'd bring his chair and a coffee and a notebook. This would be a guy you would like immediately in your 15 second deal. He'd sit down and he would just sit there and look at the house. I I don't think he would do any tripping for like, the first day and a half. He just studied the house and thought and took notes, and he was laying it all out in his head. He was, hey, how does this miter work? How am I going to cope this? Where is this going to return? And he just really took the time to really it was interesting to watch his brain work, and he was a master at his craft. And it was interesting, because not only that kind of one of those people speak softly and carry a big stick, but he the clients loved him. Because when you see someone care that much about the home, it's undeniable the passion. And I can't tell you how many people clients, when we'd exit interview them, they would talk about Todd or rich or a number of other people on our team. And it does fuel it means more to us. I don't know how many clients listen to the curious builder, but I can tell you what whoever you are in the country tell whoever you're working with, thank you. Builders tell your subs, thank you. But clients tell your builder, thank you too, and their subs. And you have those special clients like you're talking about that. Well, they bring the pizza or the subs. We had someone on that, they hired a food truck, and they would bring the food truck by every couple weeks to feed all you guys are just working like dogs on my home. Thank you so much. That kind of appreciation. You know how well built that house is going to be sure, yeah,
Don Forsman 48:16
and unfortunately, that's what 10 or 15% of our clientele that are that generous? Less than that? Yeah, it's, and it's it, if you are out there listening. I mean, we just finished one, a project for a client we've, this is our third project, and she has chocolate, chocolate chip cookies out every day for anybody who wants them. You wouldn't believe what that does for morale. I mean, it's, it's just yeah, and some Thank you. There's, I hope there's more of that. I hope we get a little bit more respect out there for what we do. It's not easy. It's and there's a lot of liability. I mean, yeah,
Mark D. Williams 48:54
don't there's a lot of risk here. Are you right, especially the world we live in today. You had mentioned just, and we'll pick on this and kind of close it down here pretty quick. But you recently sold your company, and you know what point as you scaled, did you think your building company was sellable? Walk me through that process when it dawned on you, like, Hey, I have something I can sell, or I want to build it into something I do want to sell. Give us some high level thoughts about that. I mean, a lot of people, myself included, it's like, okay, is, how do you generate something you know you can sell? Because a lot of people the narrative is that, as a building company, you can't sell what you what you are, what you have. And I think it totally depends. A lot of people don't, but a lot of people have it, put in systems and made it repeatable. I mean, you have sold your company. What are some lessons that you've learned? You know, on top of like, hey, I want to sell this. That's step one, probably. And then step two is probably building it so it is sellable. And now at three, you have sold it.
Don Forsman 49:53
Well, I will say that the M A lawyer that I used on our sale. And. He is, He will agree, the southern construction company is the singles hardest business to sell, because so many of our are built on a personality or a guy or a woman or, you know, an idea. We originally, one of the reasons we opened up a cabin shop in 2003 is we had this idea that, well, that's a legit business that obviously that can sell. I don't recommend that to general contractors. I just want to say this out loud right now, it's a very challenging business. So that was one thought we had way back when Tom Casey, your original partner, left in 95 Pete Welch, retired in 2017 and at that point when, when, when he left, that's when, I guess, the wheel started turning. Still had no great plan other than Life is short. See what happens. It was. I was talking to business brokers and other people who had been through this kind of thing before learned a lot. Just got lucky that Brian came along and was interested in the people that we had interested in a, you know, a business that does things as right as possible, and he's bringing some business mind to it. So I have a lot of confidence that this is going to work out, but I don't know. I'm, you know, honestly, Mark, I'm still in the throws of it in my head. Yeah, I've been building things since 2017 and that's a long time ago, since I was 17. That's a long time ago. That's 50 years now. I'm glad that it gets to go on. I I think, well, I wanted to keep all those we've created such an incredible staff of people, so much talent. I just, and they could have dispersed to other GCS in town or whatever, but it just felt like the collaboration, the thing that we've got going there, I just, I think it's one of a kind. And
Mark D. Williams 52:01
was Brian, from within the industry, something even no one or had someone to just recognized, you know, the reputation of what you had it and said,
Don Forsman 52:09
Hey, this is my, my long time benefits insurance agent that we've worked with since, I don't know forever his, his banker knew some other banker who knew this guy was just kind of crazy. Yeah, and because I really didn't feel it was right to sell to a business broker and not have any clue who's going to come in and do what. So just fortunate. I mean, I think we do have a reputation that is worth something. I've been trying to extricate myself for the last 10 years to make sure everybody knows that I know that they know what they're doing. They don't need to come to me, and I won't be here for them to come to me. And that's all good. They just need a little boost of confidence. And there are always there are right ways and wrong ways, but there's also many right ways. So it doesn't need to be necessarily this particular right way all the time. Just know what the end is supposed to look like and get there. You know, that's what I've tried to propel everybody into, is knowing what the end game is and work toward it.
Mark D. Williams 53:13
And think the one benefit as I've sort of changed my mindset over the last couple of years. I used to always think scaling was something I wasn't interested and didn't want to do, but I think it was because I'm at a war with a philosophy of less is more on a personal level, and managing young kids and trying to have more time with them, and just just how much is enough, and all these things that we all grapple with and we never get right. It's a balance of life. I get that and then, but realizing that more people is not more problems, more people. I've finally come to the conclusion more people is actually freedom and and I love people. You know, when I was burned out, I actually considered, you know, approaching another builder and saying, man, what would it look like if I came to work for you? I realized that I'm unemployable.
53:58
I know I could never hold a job. So, so I was
Mark D. Williams 54:01
like, I mean, that's what makes you a entrepreneur. I guess that. And I guess where I'm going with this is just, I think you everyone goes through a different process. I've sort of been really, I really enjoy interviewing people like yourself and others. But I also think it's really neat that time doesn't really dictate how far you've gone in your career. I know builders that have been building for eight, nine years, that are 10 times bigger, more successful than I am. And the other thing too, it's a little bit like cars. You don't actually really know who's successful and who's not. You know, this fancy car they lease in it. Are they? Is their mom paying the payment? Do they even, do they own it? Do they steal it? I mean, you don't really know, right? And I think social media and marketing and like, I had someone there, Dan, I get marketing and putting your best foot forward, like obviously, but like all of us, we all struggle with different things. Like last year, it was a very difficult year for our building company. I had, like, five projects that slid five, one or two fine, but five for a small little company like that was, but I remember. Someone saying coming up to me, because we do a lot social media and for I love branding websites, all this kind of stuff, like, oh man, you're just killing it. You're just awesome. And I laughed so hard, and I told them, I'm like, No, I'm not killing it. Like, I'm really struggling right now, but I'm glad you think I'm killing it. That's great. But I guess my I'm the only reason I'm bringing all this up is to realize that, like, I think, use our industry, use your peers, use people around you to help encourage you. They're not a threat. They're your collaborators. Lean on them when you're struggling, ask them for help when they're struggling. Guess what? I hope they ask you for help. And you'd mentioned earlier you've joined the curious builder collective here locally, and it's really cool. Someone asked me their day about joining, and I said, we've got people that are just a couple years in single solar owner operators, and then you've got Don forsmans, you've got bigger companies like Highmark, and it's not about what brand you are who you are, it's the diversity of this ecosystem that we can all learn from each other. And that's really what I find so encouraging, and to see people's appetite like, oh man, we could just talk about, like, what's going on, and we can learn from that. And it's really awesome to have people like yourself and anybody that just wants to say, Hey, I'd like to share my story, and you want to share yours. And together, we can create the narrative, or not create the narrative, but build the narrative among the building community and the trades and everybody else that you can have a good lifestyle, you can have a good life business, and you can do better, because there's enough in the world trying to push you down and make you know whether it's your clients or the industry or whatever, and all the things we've talked about in the podcast so far, but really giving back in an educational way that people can apply it to their business in their Life, so that they can grow and flourish and and this industry and this thing that we love can continue on and serve the next generation,
Don Forsman 56:46
right? I'm really excited about how much youth you have in this collective. And what I'd like to just do is not have every one of them learn everyone by a hard knock. I mean, there's so much experience around and you're right. 70% of any business is the same thing. It's all these relationships. It's not necessarily knowing how to put two sticks of wood together. It's about how you run a business, how you treat people, etc, etc. And there's no reason for people to have to learn that in a vacuum the hard way. And so that's why I really appreciate what you're doing. And I just think the commonality, it doesn't need to be a competitive thing. There's a lot to learn that has nothing to do with competing for the next project or whatever. We're all on our own path.
Mark D. Williams 57:34
I agreed, and I think also just from a straight, you know, person power issue. I mean, in Minnesota alone, we're 110,000 units behind what our population needs. We will not solve that in my lifetime, right? Well, that's a big statement, at least in my career. I can probably say that, but probably lifetime too. I mean, it's just my point is, there's a there's a lot of work. I think at the end of the day, you mentioned it earlier. You didn't use these words, but you were really talking about identifying your ideal client and taking jobs that align with your core values. And I think sometimes, as business owners, we feel like, man, you had a lot more 35 employees. You're staring down the monthly payroll a lot differently than I am, and knowing that, like I've gotta, I gotta keep feeding this beast. And I hear from a lot of builders that these different stratas every business a little bit different, so it doesn't matter to share revenue numbers, but maybe your company is a customer of home, but there's like, three to five, and really, you've got to double your revenue before you can get to like, eight or nine. I don't know that. The point is, as I've interviewed enough people, there's a certain like, glass ceilings you'd have to bust through. In busting through that glass ceiling kind of cuts you up. You don't make any more money. You go through all this pain, and it's not to get the other side. You're on the next level of this, you know, building journey,
Don Forsman 58:45
yeah, quite familiar with that. Yeah, that was one thing about opening the cabin shop, is that we need more cabinet makers to keep up with the volume. Oh, we need more carpenters. Then we need more Kevin just and that's how we honestly, that's how we got 35 people. It's just teeter totter. Yep, it's, it's a hard balance. And again, you know, I think it's probably better if there's more business people in this, and those of us who are more in the craft could keep doing that, and because it's a battle, it's a battle to love building and then have to love business. It's, they don't necessarily go hand in hand. So hopefully more of the guys that are out there doing this stuff will find I tell the story off, and I think it was in the late 80s, early 90s. I was I wore a lot of hats for a long time in the company, and somebody told me, and this was way back. He said, If you can pay somebody $25 an hour to do part of your job at least as good as you do. Hire them immediately. And that's I pretty much lived by that because there are things that I good at and things that I'm not good at. So there are people that can take that off your hands, and it's worth every penny it is. Another way that you grow a company, then you get, if you're good at selling, you need to go out and sell more because you got more bodies. But it's, yeah, it's the hamster wheel. Yeah, it really is. But it's been fun. It's been great. I've had few regrets, except maybe the number of hours that I spent being a business owner. That's what it's like. It needs to be done. It needs to be done. And that's the other thing I really applaud you for. Is like getting promoting the work life balance, and getting people to leave their phone behind every now and then and just work on the rest of your life. You
Mark D. Williams 1:00:36
know, I love wellness. I mean, we're doing by the time this airs, it'll probably have already happened, but we're doing the huge builder boot camp, right? And what led to that was trying to fight the stereotype that builders were fat, lazy, drunk, hairy, flannel wearing fatties. And sure, a couple of those might be true, but it doesn't have to be. And part of it was, you get off the airplane, check in your phone. There's no phones like, how do we restore how do we find our center? How do you find your balance? And there's a lot of different things that but health and wellness is just a part of it. And I think your peer group matters a lot. I think if you spend time with other people that are like minded with positive goals, I mean, that can go a negative way too, right? You know? I mean, so many lessons in business, honestly. I think my nine year old knows no. I mean, for real. I mean, I remember. I remember. I've said this many times, but like, you know, I remember asking my dad, I was probably a middle schooler. I did a paper on building, probably, and I remember asking him. I said, What makes you a successful business owner thinking you'd have some, like, golden goose egg comment I could write in this paper, just blow my teacher away. And he said, hold the door open for women and older people play, say please and thank yous and return your phone call. Like, that's it. Like, honestly, but honestly, that still applies today. Absolutely, if you do those three things, like, you're the upper 10% of sales and marketing right there, that's it, because you'll you ever get that where you get the email come in and it just happened to catch you a good time. So you call them back right away and like, Wow, thank you for calling me. So back. I'm like, you literally called me to ask for my business. Like, the least I can do is call you back. But it is so it is funny how some of the stuff is pretty low hanging fruit, but it needs to be said. I share it because it seems so silly, but it's still true. Absolutely.
Don Forsman 1:02:11
It's all about those relationships, and it's all about respect and integrity, and just, you know, run your business some way you want to run your life. It's really how I see it, and treat people the way you want to be treated, so and don't treat people the way you don't want to be treated. It's not that hard, you know, that's sometimes one of my biggest frustrations about this business. This is construction. We don't need to get all bent out of shape about anything. We're not we're not operating on your brain. We're building you a place to live. Okay? It and respect us. Will respect you. And there's really nothing at risk here except somebody ruining the relationship because they think that something is really important when they don't know what they're talking about. How
Mark D. Williams 1:02:58
often have you had a client? Well, I'm sure you've had it many times, but when is there a story that comes to mind that a client has gone off the rails and you have that exact conversation with them? How did they react to it?
Don Forsman 1:03:12
Yeah, you have to understand that I have a fairly we have had, over the years, a fairly unique clientele. Most of them are in charge of something that's rather important or large, and with that comes some self importance. I'm sorry you need, you know, you need your own courage and way of dealing with things to get through that kind of world. And usually, by the time we're at odds like that, that that conversation is necessary. It's maybe past the point of hearing it. Yeah, you know. And what almost always happens in those cases is we continue through under duress, and they come back later and say, Thank you. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. We always build a beautiful thing. I can't always build a beautiful relationship. That's all there is to it. People are people that are what they're going to do. So,
Mark D. Williams 1:04:08
I mean, that's very well said. I've it's funny now, you saying that causes me to just have reflected, like, I can already picture like three or four people that the process was difficult, and four or five months after, you know, they're telling everyone how awesome the house was. And I'm like, Man, I'm certainly glad they do that. But in my mind, I'm like, that was not the experience while we were building it. I'm glad that was the end result. It's better than, I guess, a great experience. And then them complaining about at the end, and it's hard, because you put so much of your heart into it. And as a lot of business owners, as you already mentioned, it's, it is very difficult. It's a very mixed thing. You know, you can't really have a business and not have some of your yourself in it. That's why you do it, right? And it goes, unfortunately, it goes with it. And I think that's why I think it's so important to, you know, talk about it, understand, relate to other people, do things for your health, and really set boundaries along the same spirit. I had a conversation. Conversation recently with somebody like, what an emergency is, and there's only, in my opinion, for me, only this is just for me. There's two. There's only two emergencies. And one is has something to do with my children, and something is bad and I need to be there. I'll beat the ambulance there. I'll go 100 miles an hour on the shoulder, if that's what's needed. And the other one is the same concept, it's an emergency, but the emergency, to me is like someone is bleeding out of their jugular, and my hand is uniquely fit. Is the only hand in the world that can stop that jugular from bleeding out. I will save that person's life. I will. I will move heck in high water to get there. But if it's not, we're gonna have an emergency when I get there. And it's I sometimes will actually bring this up to my clients in this exact same words I just used and to gage their response. It's actually a kind of a test, because I want to see if they laugh, if they relate to it. You know, are they uncomfortable? And I use it because this is not perfect. Yes, there's science here. There's a lot of art. And, you know, anytime somebody uses there's some I was interviewing some of their dad, someone almost I saw him start to form the word perfect. It was another builder, and she rewarded it. She goes and she changed. And I was like, You were gonna say perfect, weren't you? And we had a good laugh about it. But that is the point. Your health is such a high, and we will hold ourselves probably to a much higher standard than a client ever could, right?
Don Forsman 1:06:19
I think that's important for them to know. I don't know that they do. I think, I think one of the other things you touch on is client education. I wish we could do it better, to know what the process is going to be like. It's your I think you mentioned the other day, every client is probably going to cry sometime in the process. It's just one of those things they're put, they're putting a lot of their life blood into this thing, potentially. And we're dealing with all the things. There's 40 subs, and there's rain and there's wind and there's there's just you can't control everything. And as soon as you think you can, that's when you get all crabby, like some of our customers, who think you can control everything, and you can't.
Mark D. Williams 1:07:01
Well, I think sometimes when you're out of control, you try to control a way that you exact control is by trying to control you. Yeah, I'm out of control, so I'm gonna control you. Don but, you know, a lot of times, and I need to remind myself, someone just mentioned their day about, like, you know, someone's swerving in front of someone else in the car. And he was saying changing his mindset about road rage. And he said, what if that person was driving because their son was on the way to the hospital? What if they just got terrible news? I'd have a lot more compassion about that in it. The reason I bring this up is I had a conversation recently with somebody kind of similar lines, and I said to this homeowner, they came at me, you know, they're a hammer and I'm a nail. I had a lawyer who, one time said that he goes, he goes, when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail, right? And I was like, oh boy, this guy's pretty funny, but it was a good quote. Anyway, he said he was coming at me hard, and I said, at the end of the at the truck, I said, I want to help you, like I want a good relationship. We've had a great relationship. If you ask me for your help, for help, I will help you because I want to. I think it's in most people want to help. I don't know what it is in our human nature that when we take the aggressive role, we think that's the right response. And I know I've been on the wrong side of this, so I'm not gonna be a hypocrite and say I haven't also done it. But like, it's funny, when you're aggressive, you want the other person to say they're sorry, and when you're on the flip side, you want the other person to ask you for help. And I just wish for myself, but also for our clients, I wish they would just remember, like, we're on the same team, and it's up to us, you, as the owners, to sort of remind them continually, hey, we're on the same team. Because sometimes you'll have a client that says, hey, I need you to go beat up that sub because I need a better price. Like, no, that's like having a family and saying, like, go beat on little Johnny before. Like, what? That's crazy. Why am I doing that? Oh, this is you'd be far better off and go and ask, Johnny, can I get your help? I need your help. Can you help me? It's way better scenario. And I do think it's up to us as the leaders of our companies, to educate the clients. Like that is not a role that we need to be taking on or wanting to take on, or, I got to be honest, this probably isn't a good this isn't a good fit. If that's your expectation of me, then I don't think it's that going back to identifying your ideal client. I should probably have that conversation on, you know, in the very beginning,
Don Forsman 1:09:08
yeah, I wish there was more opportunity for that. Frankly, it should be part of the pre construction process. Let's have a real conversation of expectations, of what because people clients walk in with, well, they've been watching each too much Hga TV, right? Things can be done in a week that actually take three months, and there's a lot of misinformation. And we need to be I think we need to be better. I know I haven't been very good about setting expectations. I set expectation what it's going to look like in the end, how we get there and how long it takes? I, I can't I, I should say more about that, because we don't know. Sometimes
Mark D. Williams 1:09:46
it'd be just as my gears are spinning, is it'd be interesting to have, I don't know what point you do this in the sales process. You don't want to scare people away. But as going back to the psychologists and personality agree, it must be interesting to have 10 questions like scenarios like, how. You could actually ask this. I'm just thinking out loud, Hey, Don let's say we get into a situation where we have a plumber and his bid is $30,000 and he hits us with an overage for 3000 during the process. What are you going to say when that happens? I don't know. You have to come up with a trial quote or trial question and sort of tease it out, right? Do you expect me to go to him and say, no matter what you know, like those kinds of scenarios, it'd be kind of interesting. Kind of interesting to actually lead people through like, a like, some questions. I don't know if that would work or not.
Don Forsman 1:10:28
Yeah, I know that that happens. A lot of job interviews with people. What would you do in this situation? When this situation happened? What did you do? It'd be great to be able to do that with customers, or just give them a psychology test, get the results. It's hard to enter in such a deep relationship with somebody, and it's, again, it's on their home. This isn't a business to business thing. This is a business to a person. And I wish we had more insight into understanding their understanding and it's hard. You shouldn't be able to go build a house without some training. Probably shouldn't be able to go buy a wonderful car without knowing more about it, either. But we don't do that. It would be great to and it would, I think that kind of questioning would come help all of us along the way. We've been talking about that in our office, you know, we got to sit down with the pre construction meeting and go through what everything is going to look like until the end, and you're going to get mad. We're going to get mad, and it doesn't matter. It'll all turn out in the end. It's just the way it is. It's a big thing to do. It's a lot of time, a lot of heart, a lot of desire, and best if everybody keeps their ego the heck out of the way, because that's never helped anything. So
Mark D. Williams 1:11:50
that's well said. Well, I would respect your time and those listening as well. Thanks again for coming on the podcast. Appreciate
Don Forsman 1:11:55
it. It was my pleasure. I really appreciate what you're doing for our industry, and I hope you keep it up. Maybe, you know, maybe somebody else build homes, and you can just make, keep making the industry right. I
Mark D. Williams 1:12:06
like it, all right. I'd be happy to do it. We need some bigger sponsors, so if you're listening and you like, Don's message, hit me up. We'd be happy to work with you. Thanks for tuning the cures builder podcast. Mondays, we have our interviews with builders, designers, architects across the country. Thursdays are our Q and A if you have a question, please write in. Thanks again for tuning in to the curious builder podcast. We've had the podcast now for two and a half, almost three years now, and we have a consulting page, one to one consulting you can book my time for one hour. Perhaps you've heard a guest where you like one of the topics. Maybe you want an introduction to some of the guests that I've had on. Perhaps you want to talk about branding or marketing or anything that we've covered on the podcast over the last two and a half years, you can book a time at curious builder podcast.com thanks for tuning in to curious builder podcast. If you like this episode, do us a favor. Share it with three other business owners. The best way that we can spread what we're doing is by word of mouth, and with your help, we can continue to help other curious builders expand their business. Please share it with your friends. Like and review online, and thanks again for tuning in. You.
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