Episode 67 - Empowering Women: The Rise of WINC in the Building Industry
Episode #67 | Masha Romer & Leah Krig | Empowering Women
In this lively episode of The Curious Builder, host Mark Williams chats with Masha Romer and Leah Krig from WINC, a dynamic women in construction organization in Minnesota. They cover everything from the origins of WINC and its mission to foster connections and mentorship among women in the building industry, to the intricacies of planning popular events like the bus tour and showroom shimmy. Plus, they dive into the importance of sponsorships and sharing the spotlight with their male counterparts, emphasizing collaboration and fun in this male-dominated field.
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About Masha Romer & Leah Krig
Masha Romer was born in Moscow, Russia and immigrated to the USA in 1989 with her parents when she was 3 years old. The American dream of hard work and pursuing your passions has always been instilled in her. Masha was lucky enough to stumble into the construction industry in 2010 and has never looked back. Masha started her career in custom cabinetry, working for Danner’s Cabinets. At Danner’s Masha called on builders and remodelers. Her experience there led her to her next career move at Cambria Countertops. At Cambria, Masha was an account rep, focusing on builders, remodelers, architects and designers, covering the West Metro, St. Cloud and Duluth. Masha’s success in the building industry led her to her next position as a Business Development rep for James Hardie siding. At James Hardie Masha worked with New Construction Builders helping them achieve the best exterior aesthetics and cladding performance for their homes, while also using Hardie’s marketing resources to help their businesses grow. It was while Masha was working for James Hardie that she noticed there was no women’s networking group on the Single Family side. Masha was heavily involved at NARI and Housing First and yet, wasn’t finding a way to connect with other women in the industry. This is what inspired her to Co-Found WINC (Women in Construction) with Leah Krig in 2016. WINC is a networking/ professional development group for women who work in Single Family Construction. WINC helps women grow both personally and in their careers through relationship building and business and personal coaching. WINC promotes both the vendors and contractors in building and remodeling and helps women connect with one another. WINC currently has 800 members and monthly events. Masha is serving as the board President. Besides WINC, Masha is involved in Housing First, NARI, MNCAR, MNCREW, Wired Up and TCHA. Masha's full time job is the Director of Business Development for Lelch. Lelch is a Lifestyle Technology Integrator. When Masha is not working, she enjoys spending time with her husband Justin, her two sons Barron and Raymond and running around with them and playing sports outside.
Leah graduated magna cum laude from the University of Wisconsin – Stout’s Interior Design program. She joined Northland Woodworks in 2007 after a few years working for a commercial interior design firm and doing freelance residential design. Leah was excited to learn the manufacturing side of cabinets, always fascinated by how things are made, by materials and processes. She also learned cabinet layout and estimating from her father-in-law, Gary Krig, the company’s original founder. Leah’s expertise is listening to clients and combining their needs and wants with her experience in the design industry. She is in the details, operating comfortably in the world of architects and design professionals. She is thorough and not afraid to ask questions in order to get to the best possible design solution for her clients. Seeing a need in the Twin Cities for women in the construction industry to connect, Leah co-founded the non-profit Women in Construction (WINC) and is currently serving on the board. The group provides mentoring, educational and social events geared toward supporting local women in the industry, as well as philanthropic opportunities to serve the local community. In her free time, Leah enjoys being outdoors in all types of weather and spending time with her husband, Matt, their three boys, and their Brittany Spaniel, Piper.
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Mark D. Williams
Today in the curious builder podcast, we had Marcia Romer and Leah Craig from wincon, What a delightful interview, loved hearing about each one of their backstories as well as you know how they founded wink, which is women in construction. So if you are looking for leveling up your business and you're a woman in construction, you definitely want to tune into this episode. If you're out state, and you want to start something like this, this would be an amazing lesson, really, for any organization. I mean, some of the bedrocks of what they're doing, to have a inclusive community from starting with a board before they even have members created this really unique organization tree that really is just sort of galvanize the state of Minnesota. And so if you're out state, I'd highly recommend reaching out to them and starting something in your own state. And if nothing else, you're gonna get all kinds of information about how you can support wink whether you want to be a sponsor, or whether you want to attend some of their events. We'll have everything in the show notes. So without further ado, here is Masha and Leah. Welcome to the curious builder Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host today I am joined with Marsha Roma and Leah Craig from WINC women in construction in Minnesota. Welcome, ladies.
Unknown Speaker 1:05
Thank you. It's great to be here.
Mark D. Williams<br> 1:07
I'm so excited to have you on. Lee and I have known each other for sorry, Marsha and I have known each other for a quite a while. So maybe we'll start with you Masha, tell us a little bit about yourself and your history in the building and construction world here locally, and then we'll we'll switch over to Leah and then really most of it is going to be you know, just speaking about and celebrating. All that Wink is but I think it's important for the listeners to understand some of the backstory. Sure,
Unknown Speaker 1:32
absolutely. Should I go into just
Mark D. Williams<br> 1:36
a five minute recap. Okay, who is Marsha Romer,
Speaker 1 1:39
sir? So currently, I'll start with what I currently do. And then I'll go into the backstory. I currently work for Lelouch. We're a technology lifestyle technology integrator, so that means audio visual technology, recessed lighting, design, basically, any tech you see in your home, that's what we do. But I'm also the current WINC, president and co founder with Lea Craig. And that's what we'll be focusing on today, as he mentioned, but I was not always in the construction industry, I kind of fell into it. And I'm so lucky, I did and, and I've, you know, been in, in this career, for the last I say, maybe like 14 years. But I was born in Moscow, Russia, and I came to the US when I was three with my family, you know, we fled the communist government, it was 1989. And we got out and we always just, I remember my parents just always talking about like their whole lives, having the American dream and living the American dream. And they just couldn't wait to get out of the former Soviet Union and come and make a life here. And so from as far as I can remember, you know, we were learning English and getting educated and pursuing, you know, all the things that, you know, we wanted to pursue here in this country. And, and so I went to college, I grew up in St. Paul, and then Eagan, and then I went to college at the University of Minnesota, and I studied communications. And that was really just that I like talking to people like, communications, I should be my degree. And what does that mean, I had no idea. But I graduated in 2008, during the Great Recession, and, you know, there weren't a lot of places hiring and I went to a job fair, and I thought, Okay, I like talking to people, maybe Human Resources is line of work for me. And at this job fair, I met a trucking company, and the trucking company was like, we want to hire you as our recruiter. And I was like, oh my god, it's like human resources. Ask like, yeah, I can hire truck drivers. So that's what I went and did my first job out of college. And it was very hard. The trucking industry, a lot of people might not know it hasn't or at least back then it had 180% turnover rate. Oh, my word. Yeah. So there are more people like quitting and being fired than we were hiring. But my job was every week to bring in a new class of brand new trucking recruits. So I don't know where they had these lists of all these truck drivers, but like, every week, I was on the phone morning till you know 7am till 5pm
Mark D. Williams<br> 4:16
So were you just cold calling him out of the blue calling truck? rahmer. I'd like you to drive a truck for me. Like what is this? Do you remember some of your, your lines? Yeah,
Speaker 1 4:24
I mean, I have a script. I had a script. I promised them their pay and their benefits and how great it was to work for, you know, this company among all the other companies out good. We treat them how many miles we promised them, how many loads they could deliver for us. I mean, it was like, I was basically selling to them why they should quit at doing whatever they were doing right then in there and come work for us. And it was okay, that sounds fun and cute. But it was really tough. I mean, let's say I had like a group of i Let's say 10 truckers that was coming in that week. Maybe well, then I had to run their background checks. And I would see horrible things. And this is, of course, not every trucker, I worked with some amazing truckers, but this is just part of the experience. There were some horrible things on those background checks, criminal records, all sorts of things. So maybe like, five would pass that and then maybe like, two would show up actually to the class. And then I drive them around, take them to their background checks, I would do the drug test. I mean, I kind of like put my foot down, they tried to have me do the drug tests like, and I'm pretty squeamish person. So once I have that couple of urine in my like, that's an all I cannot do. So that, you know, there were lots of lots of stories. Again, it was the recession, and we were cutting cars and IV they had be a bunk with the team trying to like clean trucks for a little bit. It was not fun and not pretty. And I was just, you know, every it seemed like, looking
Mark D. Williams<br> 5:59
back, what do you think you learned because I look at if I was to summarize you to people that don't know, because I feel like in Minnesota, like if you don't know who Marsh is, like, you must be under a rock. Because I feel like you know everybody I can think of a handful of people that no matter where you go you out your you attend pretty much every event, you know, you must have 700 days in your calendar year because you're everywhere. But where I was going this, I would describe you as a fearless communicator who is very engaging, very sincere and very approachable. What I'm curious about two things about just so far in your backstory is, how much of that do you think is innate? Versus learned? You know, this fearless communication? Like, do you think like seeing your parents, you know, emigrate, and even just your story, or your personality? And then what did you learn? You know, kind of during this trucking time before you got to James Hardy,
Speaker 1 6:44
right? Well, I feel like I was very, very naive, I kind of like thought everyone was a very good person, and everyone delivers on what they promised. And if you say you're going to show up to my recruiting class this week, and you're so great, like, I just didn't think that like people didn't, wouldn't show up or wouldn't be telling the truth, or that people would have this tough stuff behind them on their records, like, so I think it taught me a little bit of reality, which was good. It's a good lesson to learn. But I think, you know, from my parents background, I always believed anything was possible because they at you know, 29 years old, with a toddler took off not having a single dime to their name, not knowing the English language, just took off, made it here in America and just, you know, said, This is our new path in life, and we're going to achieve what we're supposed to
Mark D. Williams<br> 7:35
be siblings at the time. It was 70 siblings now. Yeah,
Speaker 1 7:39
I have a sister who's actually 14 years younger. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And so, um, and we're really close. She's getting married this summer. Yeah. And so I think I just always thought like, I was naive, yes. And it did teach me a little bit about the harsh reality of the world. But I still always had that, like, everything is possible. And I can really, like achieve anything I believe in. And so but also, what it taught me was like, Hey, I'm a salesperson, like, what am I doing? I'm not an HR, which, you know, HR is amazing and great. And, but that's not really my path. If I can sell these truckers, OD covering, leaving whatever they're doing right now and coming to work for me at my company. I can't really sell anyone on anything.
Mark D. Williams<br> 8:21
I think, you know, it's interesting, you find parallels and other people's stories that sort of echo your own, oddly enough. So I was a communication major at the University of Minnesota 2003. And I like the way you wrote this in your kind of bio, is it's a degree for people who don't have any idea of what they want to do. I can I can I can I call that statement? You know, and so I'm not sure how much I learned. I'll be enough having a podcast now. I mean, literally, this would have been helpful information, you know, had I absorbed it, you know, many years ago, but I think you have a massive degree in the figured out factor and listening to people on the podcast and your story specifically right now. You know, sometimes those early years where it seems like they're really difficult, and you're kind of being asked to do everything. Yeah. I mean, I think sometimes until someone asks you a question, you don't realize some of the attributes and things that you've learned, you know, along the way, and maybe just so we don't run out of time. So I want to celebrate wincon I think the backstory is important. But you know, you work for Cambria for a couple of years. I met you when you would then work for James Hardy. And then you, you had you left and then had to tell us about that until you get to level Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 9:21
So at James Hardy, I was selling to builders. And Mark, you were one of my first builders that I worked with that. And and hardy has its own story. You know, that was hard to because I was trying to win the market back you know, most of the market had gone to our competitor at the time. And so it was again that figure it out factor like you mentioned and that really being able to be rejected said no to over and over and over again. But figuring out what can I do that's more than just sales. How can I be more to other people? How can I help them How can I help them succeed and grow and use my resources in connection to bring something good to them? That's kind of what I learned at Hardy and that really helped With founding wink and so, what should I talk about?
Mark D. Williams<br> 10:04
Well, let's, yeah, let's, let's go over to Leah and have her give her backstory. And then we'll switch back and talk about how you guys first met and kind of the inspiration behind wink. Yeah,
Speaker 2 10:14
that sounds good. So I grew up always interested in interior design and architecture, my it was actually really fostered by my dad, who is a retired civil engineer. And he would take me for rides around town and show up show me different creative intersection designs and and talk about the projects that he was working on. It's a road construction projects and and what I was really interested in were all the details behind it, you know, the the stories that he had to tell about the budgets and the and you know, what didn't go right, and how did he fix it and, and those are kind of the some of the things that really interested me about it. And I realized in college that I wanted to really make an impact on the world. And I thought that the best way to do that would be through interior design. So I went to the University of Wisconsin Stout for interior design. And I really enjoyed it, I met my husband, Matt there. And he, his background is his dad had started a custom cabinet shop in the 70s. And he was interested in taking over the business, but not because he loves cabinet making, but because he's totally into the business side of things. And so he was really trying to learn all about that. And so I graduated from college, and I started working for an interior design firm that did primarily restaurants and retail spaces. And I really, I mean, I enjoyed it quite a bit. And I got to the point where I couldn't really go any further at that firm. And I was thinking about what I should do next. And, and Matt came to me one day, and he said, You should come into work for us. You could make some improvements. And I was like, Yeah, I can give it a shot, you know, and taking over the family business was not anything that I had considered up until that point. So it was really kind of like, okay, I'll give this a shot. And then I started to realize, well, I can't just go into this half assed, you know, I have to really put myself into it all in. And so that's what we did, we, we just, it was 2007, of course, a great time to be putting all your eggs in one basket, a company, but so the two of us were working there. And then the recession hit. And so my father in law was still running the company at that time, I was still learning. And Matt was working there. And all three of us, you know, at the same place during the recession, but we got creative, and we took on a lot of interesting projects during that time to stay afloat because we didn't want to have to let people go, or our accountant told us to shut the business down. How, in total, you know, I think we had five or six people during the recession. And it was interesting, we had the opportunity to work on a really cool project in a penthouse in Minneapolis, someone came to us looking for some serpentine shaped cabinets. And this is something that it really challenged us and it was really exciting. And that's the kind of thing that that we thrive on. Whereas my father in law was kind of like, oh, I don't know, we can do this, you know, and we're like, No,
Mark D. Williams<br> 13:30
we can do it was all fired up, because it was something new. Yeah.
Speaker 2 13:34
And we knew that we could do it, we knew that we could figure out how to make it work and do it within budget within timeline. And, you know, this would be this really cool project and so that we did that and we just hit it out of the park. And we we loved it. And that was where I think we sort of started stepping away from kind of the builder cabinets that my father in law provided which were great quality and he provided what builders needed. And to something a little bit more custom a little bit more fun. Really.
Mark D. Williams<br> 14:05
And that probably would have been before CAD drawings to and CNC machines as well know that by hand or was that
Speaker 2 14:11
no, actually, most both Matt and I learned AutoCAD in school. Okay, and so we both knew how to do that. And we were communicating to art we've had a CNC machine. I mean, my father in law might have been old school but he was a pretty forward thinker. Okay. And so he had a CNC for years before we even routers
Mark D. Williams<br> 14:31
use any of the serpentine does the arches and stuff but yeah, I'm sure you could do it manually but obviously with a CNC machine you can it was do anything. Yeah,
Speaker 2 14:38
it was a lot easier with that with that technology for sure. And I mean, so it really what we call ourselves as a technology company that just happens to make cabinets we we obviously are super into craftsmanship and and that kind of thing, but but we like to use the technology to really further our, our business and make it make it work for us. So that's
Mark D. Williams<br> 14:59
great. Well, let's transition into the wink portion. And again, for those that aren't are from around here in Minnesota, it's women in construction. But I guess you know, what struck me in just kind of preparing for this and reading on the website. And just even what you wrote in your bio, Marcia was just, you know, walk us through, you know, obviously, being a man growing up and building and kind of seeing a very male dominated industry, it's kind of interesting. And I very much want more women in construction for a variety of reasons. One is I have a daughter, too, you know, my mom was an interior designer, and I just have always been surrounded. But think about it, like all of the decisions made in a home, are predominantly made by women. So it's sort of ironic that you have a bunch of men in the industry that has dominated that our dominant client class is women. It's very ironic, but of anyone who if you left, let's call it sneaky, smelly truck drivers. You've actually, you know, Cambria will take that aside, because I'm sure there's more women there than it was in truck driving would be my guess. Then you went to siding company. Yeah. And now at lunch, you're gonna have a better fit, but you've always been around, you seems like you're getting up the rank of maybe less. You know, Harry flannel, you know, all the stereotypes that surround building, which is definitely not true. But I mean, obviously, you have been in a very male dominated industry, your entire career, all the different steps, right. Tell us about your experience of going to these groups. I feel like that was very informative to why you started wink of not everyone has your dynamic, fearless communication, personality? When did you realize that you could be sort of a lightning rod in both of you walk us through your each unique experience of being sort of on an island? Yep. And wanting more women in the room with you, and how you guys formed it together? And we'll kind of go that way into Lincare.
Speaker 1 16:42
Absolutely. So the building industry here in Minnesota, I'm not sure about anywhere else. But here. It's a very relationship driven industry and your relationships matter. It's, you know, they say, it's who you know, not what you know, but it's also like, you know, the closeness with who you know, and how you treat the people, you know, and, and those relationships really do matter. And I felt like, because back then it was so male oriented, I don't mind the stinky, smelly part, that's fine. But but just the relationships, I felt that I was making were lacking, like, genuine friendship, just because of, you know, I am a woman. And at that time, I was maybe engaged my husband, and I'm married, and I maybe can't have that closeness that a man can have with, you know, a male client or male customer. So I would see like, my male co workers or my competitors, taking their builders out hunting, fishing, golfing, all these trips, and not saying women can't do that. But that wasn't my forte, I wasn't going to go rent a cabin with 10 men for a reason. You know, I'm doing your fishing, I just couldn't do that. I wasn't I was never going to achieve that closeness and those real genuine connections and friendships. And so I thought, gosh, like, I know, they're women in this industry. They just seem to be behind the scenes. Where are they in? How can I really build those connections? And so I'm at around and I would go, I mean, Leah has the story about the back then now it's Housing First, back then it was the Builders Association and feeling like you're walking into a room and like, gosh, like, Who can I talk to, like, I'm really out of place here. And so um, at that same time, Hardy had started a women's networking group for women in sales at heart, like they just out of the blue started it. And they invited us all on a trip to Asheville, North Carolina, and to like, go bond, learn some stuff. We had some speakers, but also, like, go out and do some stuff together and bond and it changed us. I mean, all of us it just three days. And we felt so connected to Hardy, how big was the group? I mean, maybe it would have been like 3040 people, it wasn't big, and none of us knew each other because we were all in different markets all over the country. But after that trip, I mean, we were like, reenergize reinvigorated. We're like, rah, rah, Hardy, we're ready to go. And it was just because of those connections. Because all of a sudden, now, we weren't alone on a boat, we had each other and we had deep and meaningful conversations, and we could really connect and so the cash if only there was a women's group like that here, so I could build those relationships and, and I even had to ask my boss at the time I like drempt up this name, I was only focused on new construction at the time, so I was like, it could be called Women in new construction. It could be wink, how cute is that? And I asked my boss at the time Scott Hager, who is wonderful guy. I was like, what if I did something like this? He's like, You have my blessing. But you know, I'm someone like always like dream of big ideas and have these ideas but like, I need like a partner. I need someone who like can like say yes, let's do it. And this is how we're going to do it and keep me on task. So anyway, this was all in my in my head at this point. And then let's go to Leah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 19:52
So right around that time, that was 2013 or sorry to those 16 and my husband and I had taken over For the business, we were officially running it without my father in law around and, and we were having to bring on our own builder clients because my father in law's builder clients were starting to age out. And so I basically started like Marsha going to every industry event that I could just get myself get our name out there, getting out there and just doing whatever I could. And I remember one night, I was working late with a customer in the showroom, and closed up and went to this industry event. And I walked in, and I've been in the industry by, you know, for about 10 years at that point, and I'm, I walk in, and I see just this wall of suits, and it's, it's all these men, and they all are good, you know, good old boys, and they're, you know, all know each other. And it was just these closed groups, and I just felt so out of place. And I've never felt like that before. And ever since I, you know, was young, I always felt like I could do anything that I wanted. And my my family fostered that as well. It's just like, oh, there's no men do this. And women do this, you know, it's just everybody can do everything. And because I'm more on the, the customer facing side, and the customers are mostly women that are making these decisions, I just didn't even think about it. You know, so then here I am in this in this group, and I just felt like a fish out of water and, and by that time, Masha and I knew each other because she worked for Cambrian she was coming in and selling cambric countertops for me and with me, and she she and I would meet for lunch and coffee dates and bounce builder leads off of each other and, and so I had a lunch date with her the following week. And I was still feeling just kind of frustrated and out of place about this. And I sat down I said Marsha, I just had the worst experience at an event last night, or maybe it was the week before. You know, I told her about it. And she looked at me and she said, Let's start a women's group. And I said, Okay, let's do it. So that was really cool wink started just
Mark D. Williams<br> 22:02
been waiting for you. She's been waiting for her Robin needed Robin, right.
Speaker 2 22:08
It was like a divine appointment. I mean, it really couldn't have gone any, any better than that because I need, you know, I'm definitely like, in the details in the weeds kind of person and kind of the, and I need someone like Masha, who's going to have the idea and have the contacts. And
Mark D. Williams<br> 22:27
so what year was this? So
Speaker 1 22:28
this was was it? 2016? Yep, yep, yep.
Mark D. Williams<br> 22:31
Wow. Yeah. And now obviously, you know, if you go to your website, which is very polished, and it's so well thought out, and we can talk. Alright, well, way to go. It's pretty impressive. We'll maybe talk about that in a little bit. Just because I have some questions about what it is become, I just find the, you know, I think a lot of people and myself included know, nothing quite as noble as you know, women in Construction Group. But as anyone that tries to get people galvanized together, whether it's sharing about business or sharing about common things that you agree on, like, there's the initial phase, but then for to have any sort of lasting stamina and lasting effect. Like, it takes a lot of not only willpower, but you need a lot of people it needs to be the message has to be right number one, you have to have the right number of people associated with it. And you guys you know, especially what what it's easy to, to look at it what it is now, but I'm kind of curious to see what it was when it first like those early evolution years and just for you know, Respecting time, because I want to get into what it is now walk us through those early years of how you sort of organized it like where did you go after you said, Yeah, let's do it. Like what was next? Like, what did you do? And what are those first couple years look like?
Speaker 2 23:35
Well, our first meeting was at the Minneapolis Women's Club, Joy Martin, of toy market, Martin architecture, she was a member there. And so she offered the space to us. And we basically just reached out to all of our contacts who are women. And
Unknown Speaker 23:52
that was like 30 people, all
Mark D. Williams<br> 23:53
of our contacts are of 1/3 Our in construction now specifically,
Unknown Speaker 23:58
I think maybe 30 showed up. No, I
Speaker 1 24:00
think you were like on my email list. Because we didn't know that many at the time. Because like you said it was just they were kind of few and far between Sure. Yeah.
Speaker 2 24:09
So that first meeting was was really just a lunch and and heard you paid for it. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And, and we really cool. We talked, we met, we ate lunch. And then we sent an email we sent a what? We asked them like, what do you want to see in a women's group? Yeah, we gave we haven't filled out a survey.
Speaker 1 24:30
And so we were just so surprised. I think it was like 23 ish people who showed up but like, why? Like, I think we were like, Oh my gosh, like all 23 of you wanting to come to this like this is
Mark D. Williams<br> 24:41
like this random you're sort of blown away that that many people showed up exactly. I
Speaker 1 24:45
was so floored and and how fun it was and how like natural it felt for everyone to be there. And then I think like Alana Wynn, who's now with all NK and we love her and she was our first vice president. She said, Well, you guys really if you want to do this So you guys really should start a board? And we're like, okay, like, how do you fit on a board like that? Yeah. And, and so she was like, This is how we do it. And we kind of emailed everyone said, Hey, we need some women to volunteer to be on the board. And I think at first there were seven of us. And then it went down to five, really of us who's five less, who really started the board. And we would meet monthly and just like, plan these events. And like now we're more official. Now we have eight of us. But that's how it kind of started. And it was just interesting from the beginning. And Leo will talk a little bit about why we don't charge dues. But from the beginning, we knew we don't want to charge dues, we want to be different. And so the only way we can get away with not charging dues, but having programming is if we ask the vendors in the market to host and it's a really great thing for them, because then they get, you know, maybe at that time is like 40 to 50 Women who show up every month, but then now it's you know, now it's like, anywhere between 60 to 100 Women who show up at their showroom, and learn about this business, and it really elevates our vendors. But right away, these vendors would volunteer, they say, Yeah, I want to host I want to host I want to host and the list began, and women started showing up and we just email every month, hey, the next event is at this time, and people would show up, and we were like, wow, that we've really got something here. Yeah,
Mark D. Williams<br> 26:15
I'll say I mean, you had a huge community essentially tapped into community spirit. Right? And yeah, you were basically the lightning rod of what you were feeling. And you're saying, hey, anyone that feels this way? Come Come join us. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 26:28
absolutely. Yeah, we really saw that
Speaker 2 26:30
women were doing some really amazing things in, in these different companies within the industry. And they just, we were on these islands, and we weren't able to communicate with each other about it in any, any real way. And so that was what Link was really supposed to do is just bring us all together, where we feel comfortable. We're all on a level playing field. And we we can socialize and, and network and inspire each other. And
Mark D. Williams<br> 26:56
I mean, one of the things on your website was just doing these different points you had, you know, support networks, you have some philanthropic part that we'll talk about, you have some mentoring. And then of course, the sharing of strengths, talents and experience. I mean, just that community pool that, you know, in some ways, it's like unofficial official counseling, slash business coaching, slash therapy slash I mean, I assume, I don't know if this correct me if I'm wrong, but based on the head nods I'm getting because you're having a community that's like, I'm dealing with this, does anyone have a good solution, and now they become your people. And now all sudden, this people becomes a huge galactic force that can sort of help each other and lift up the entire industry.
Speaker 1 27:33
And when you have a bunch of women together, all working for the good of something like let's say, our building industry, there's a natural trust that forms and you have you feel comfortable enough to share. So like you said, the therapy that happens, I think that's so true. I mean, you just start sharing, and you have deep conversations that are very natural, you don't have to ask for those conversations. They just happen. And those relationships, relationships form, and then you just start helping each other. And as you help each other, the whole industry, you know, get
Mark D. Williams<br> 28:03
100%. And I love and I'm going to repeat what you shared your in your in your little bio that you sent me. And I think this is really important. But I think a lot of people would look at a lot curious to hear, if you will kind of backlash year how many people that have a negative connotation towards weekend, where I would challenge that premise is where it says your mission at wink is not about demoting men, but raising people up. And I think that's important for people to remember, regardless of what platform or what thing that they're doing. Or if you yourself feels threatened by something, ask yourself the question. First is the group whatever it is, in this case, it's weighing, but let's pick some unknown group that I'm even thinking about. I think it's good for myself to think about, like, I'm thinking like, what can I use about this to help me as a lens, look at other things? And it's like, is this group trying to push somebody down? And we live in a very polarizing world with all kinds of, you know, interesting topics out there, right? But I think maybe a big thing is like, are you trying to push other people down? Or are you just trying to bring people up? And I think you hit the core of it for me, I love what you've kind of said very succinctly that if you're raising people up, how can how can and if you don't agree with that, then you are the person pushing somebody down. I think that's a good thing to look in the mirror and ask yourself but with that question, did you guys face much resistance in the market? Or do you face much resistance?
Unknown Speaker 29:15
Not at all? No.
Speaker 1 29:17
And I think like, like how you said and how you grow, it's not about demoting men at all. We know we work with men all day every day and we know how important everyone is to this market into this industry. It's just about having kind of that just a little bit of a different network where you feel a little more uncomfortable to be yourself and kind of like sharing you know, maybe inner thoughts or personal feelings or whatever but again, we are just as much as a partner to the men in the industry as well and we love them and respect them as
Mark D. Williams<br> 29:45
well. I love it. I mean now obviously when you have like a parade home and you know now you guys are up to you know how many total members do you have now?
Speaker 1 29:55
So our email list is like 800 people and it growing but for us So we have monthly events and usually, you know anywhere between 60 to 100 women sometimes a little more if the showroom can hold more people are artisan busters a Whelan with wink, we do it for the artisan tour. So it's a bus tour we do for the artisan homes and we are now debating maybe doing now we have two buses going. So that's 100 women, but we're debating adding a third maybe for the fall tour that would be 150 women. So every month and we do have a bigger that shows
Mark D. Williams<br> 30:26
it's pretty impressive. I mean, I've been at the parade. And actually, for whatever reason mine has always geographically I guess this last one I finally was able to make the week bus. Because the previous year we are too far out. And I know you guys are doing your map and trying to hit as many as possible. But yeah, man, you guys pull up on the bus. And especially if people aren't in the industry or don't know about Wait, I love watching people's faces in the dislike, there's 100 People coming up the steps like right now, when you come you're coming in for us. And it's amazing to see. Because obviously so many of them are industry insiders, PBR designers that people we work with, like yourselves, and and, you know, we love seeing that kind of interest in our homes and in the community. And the two are larger, so huge support to just be it of builders and obviously construction as a whole.
Speaker 2 31:11
Well, and that's a really fun story too, when we wouldn't you're wasn't that we toured before we had the bus tour, it was maybe 2018. Yeah, I think and we, we decided to go hit the artists and home tour as a small group. So there were four of us, I think. And we all were from different parts of the industry. So Marsha was inciting someone else was doing window coverings, I do cabinets. And I can't remember who the fourth person was, maybe wallpaper or something like that. But we went through these houses. And it was so fun to hear everyone's opinions or everyone's comments on, you know, pointing out cool details. You know, Marsha would point out citing detail, but I would I would never have looked at and it was so neat to be able to see that and, and to see it from someone else's perspective. And so that year, we said, Oh, next year, we should do this with a group. And that's really how the bus tour came about. Because we've we got a bus going the next year and then the next year after that. And then we did two buses and now you have a Super Bowl.
Mark D. Williams<br> 32:12
It's like a Super Bowl party coming into town
Speaker 1 32:14
and is that bus tour sells out within like three hours. So if you are here, a woman in wink in the Twin Cities look for that email, it should be coming out in the next month ish or so and get on.
Mark D. Williams<br> 32:27
Add some more buses. Yeah. Let's, uh, let's do a quick shout out to the board. I think there's eight on it now. Yeah. Why don't you talk a little bit about the orchestration of you know, it's kind of cool that right when you started, you know, a lot of recommend you have a board. So it's like you had a board before we had members, which is perfect, powerful, because I am guessing that the shape and the organization that we see now is in large part based on Alana as advice of having a board helped shape it from day one. Is that
Speaker 1 32:53
true? Absolutely. And then we really, so really drove us to become an official 501 C six, so an official nonprofit industry, nonprofit. And so we wanted to make sure the board was really official and operated correctly, and voted correctly. And we did everything right and fair. So because at first we just really just went along with you know, we were
Unknown Speaker 33:18
going to Buffalo fly by the seat of our pants. Yeah,
Speaker 1 33:21
exactly. But now so um, so now we have Kristen who's our VP Kristin Rhiness. She's with admin one. And I just want to say something wonderful about each person on the board because I like I'm in awe of every single person I can not believe like how dedicated every single woman is and we're all volunteers. So no one gets paid to be on this board and though amount of passion and heart and like true caring that goes into and time and time that goes into all this. So Kristin, she's with that about one, she's our VP. She's amazing. And she also heads up our philanthropy, part of what we do and Alana kind of spearheaded that, and Kristen has taken it over and we can talk about that too. But she's an amazing kind person and friend. And then we have Janelle Matson, who's our secretary, and if you need a designer or a GC of PM. Janelle a realtor Janelle is phenomenal. She's your connector. She is an amazing connector. She is a jack of all trades. She was actually the designer in my own home. So and I couldn't recommend her enough. I always say that. Then we've got Leah, our treasurer and Leah. If you need cabinets, Northland, what where are you? But Lee is phenomenal. And she keeps us on track. And she's very organized and very dedicated. And we're so lucky to have Leah. And then we have Heather Griffis who's also the admin one and Heather is our events coordinator. So she sends out all of the events emails,
Mark D. Williams<br> 34:47
she said that was Heather. That's Heather, Heather.
Speaker 1 34:51
Thank God for Heather. Heather does so much all day every day keeps us on track keeps all these registrations on track back into worth with all of our members. So
Mark D. Williams<br> 35:01
the thing I'll say about events, and I'll do a shout out to Heather, I'm going to have to have coffee with her. Until when I started the curious builder podcast, I decided to do some live events, as you know. And so we've done with one with Welch and with you, and the amount of work and time, as you mentioned, Leah that goes into creating an event like hats off, people that are in the event space, you are underappreciated. And, you know, the amount of effort that goes into it is a lot. It's easy to just show up and be present. And, you know, from sponsors to coordinating and I'm not saying that one of the things is that difficult. It's just that it takes so much time. And perseverance, I mean, because it's so the thing that I don't know, if you found this and make this show up, Heather, I just talked about events. But one of the issues that I find with events is that people don't plan very well. And people tend to like you don't actually know when we feel we're going to show up till like the week of and it's maddening to order food to line up stuff. And if you're spending money to create an event, it's obviously you guys have done it pretty well. If you're getting the showroom space, I'm guessing you're getting that at no cost, which keeps the overhead down and it's a win win, as you've already said, but it's also just respectful. It's a little bit like in being, you know, us fellow communicators, Marsha, you know, one of my pet peeves is when people don't communicate, I'm fine with the yes or no, it's the maybe that really bothers me. You know, I
Speaker 2 36:23
think there's a little bit of a FOMO when people get the the wink, email, I'm we sell it pretty quick, usually. And so that tends to be because people know that if they don't RSVP, they're not they might not get a spot. So that happens pretty quickly. But one other thing that happens is each one of us, quarterbacks each event. So I mean, Heather is definitely the coordinator of the events. But then each one of us were each one of the board members, kind of heads off, contacting the showroom, making sure to get the logos doing all the detail work to make sure that Heather's not doing it all because it would be way too much. It is way too much for one person. Yeah,
Mark D. Williams<br> 37:01
I mean, it helps do that. If you're if your list is 800, and you're getting between 60 to 100. You know, that's one and eight have to be available. But the other side of it is you're doing an event once a month, which is a lot. It's I mean, that's a big poll. It's funny, because, oddly enough, when we did our last curious builder, it happened to be the same night that you were having. Yeah, and I was like, because we do pull a pretty large crowd of you know, of ladies to our events. And it's like, you know, a good portion of them are like, Nope, we're at a weak event. That would have been nice. I wish someone on the lunch team could have talked to me about that date. Well,
Speaker 1 37:33
I think there was right it was something good we were like in between dates and then by the time we landed on one it was like too late and you just go with what you go Yeah, exactly. There's so few dates to go around. It seems like and I was so torn it was really
Mark D. Williams<br> 37:47
just impress you guys I do one a month. That's no joke. So really
Speaker 1 37:51
the moral of the story is you need to hire ahead there. I'm
Mark D. Williams<br> 37:55
hiring other now. Forget nonprofit either come over here. I'll pay.
Speaker 1 37:59
Right. And then I'll just tell the ladies just so everyone gets a shout out um Greta Wittenberg with creative endeavor. Diane on your last podcast shouted her out. She manages our website. She didn't she didn't shoot other websites
Mark D. Williams<br> 38:11
are beautiful. I mean, shout out to her. I haven't met her. But Diane's website was gorgeous. Yeah. And your website I just looked at briefly and I was like, Wow, your imagery. And I mean, wow,
Speaker 2 38:21
she basically, I had an idea. And I knew how it wanted to look how it wanted. I knew how I wanted it to look, but I really didn't know how to get it there. And she just, she did it. And then she also wrote a lot of the copy for it because it's not something that I have a harder time writing about myself. And so she she wrote it and I'm a really good a good editor. So I was able to edit it that but it just was It was awesome. Yeah, front to back. And so
Speaker 1 38:48
to have like a website designer graphics person who understands all of this kind of stuff on our board, I mean, holy moly, we lucked out with that for sure. And then we've got Diane Mullis which, by the time you're listening to this podcast if you haven't heard Diane's pro concrete countertops, please listen. It's a really great one and Diane's phenomenal and she is so good at what she does and so creative and so smart and talented. And then we've got Emily Young's with Dakota County lumber is our newest board member and she so I know we were maybe going to talk about sponsorship so yes she really we've had this idea for so long we need to create a sponsorship program how do we do it? How do we do it we kept going back and forth we brought Emily on on and boom she created it so we're really lucky to have her but yes sponsorship
Mark D. Williams<br> 39:37
now let's talk a little bit about that. So both if someone wants to sponsor you know as lucky because obviously this show can't exist without sponsors and you know huge shout out to them you know they're they can be found on our sponsor page on the curious builder podcast you know for you all your sponsors are listed down below you know on your website, how do you a attract them be what kind of tiers of sponsorships and what do they get? In return, you know, I've one thing you know, it's always like when you're when I've learned a lot in the last two years about, you know, asking, it's a little bit different the only way, you know mine is a for profit business where yours is a nonprofit, I guess I'd like to talk about that maybe after we talk about sponsors, but what what has been your approach with sponsors? I have to imagine a lot of people actually want to sponsor, how do you tear? What is your what is your deliverables? You know, to them?
Speaker 1 40:23
When take this one, or should I even go ahead? Well, this is hard, because we have it all in a list. But since it's not in front, that's fair. It's hard to say high level. But basically, to create a sponsorship program, we had to do exactly how you just mentioned figure out what do the sponsors get in return. And I think we were kind of had all of our wheels kind of spinning on what really could have given them back and return what is actually a value to them. And that's what Emily helped with a lot because Emily with Dakota, Dakota County lumber she's coming, she was coming at it from like, the vendor side of like, and then sponsored, are willing with Wintour many, many times. So she kind of knew exactly like, Hey, this is what we would like to see from you guys. And she was very transparent about that. And we sat down with Sonny Bowman as well, the Dakota County lumber and they were like, if we're gonna keep sponsoring you guys, this is what we want to see. And that kind of helped start that conversation because it were some of those things. Yeah. So it was like, we want to be on all of your emails that go out, we want to be on your website, we want to be on your social media, at our events, oh, the one thing we started doing, we have a banner of our sponsors and their different levels at our events. So you know, obviously the top level sponsors get their names much bigger, and then it kind of goes down from there. And we also wanted just like we don't charge dues to our members, we wanted to make those sponsorships affordable, especially because we're just kind of getting into that sponsorship program. Now, we can always go higher later. And as we grows, we can go higher. But right now we're like, what's doable for these businesses? So many of these businesses have to sponsor so many things already. So like, how do we make it feasible for them? What are the different levels? And how do we actually like, make promises that we can keep? And so that's, that's really what we've been working on. And I think it's been going really well. And it just helped having someone who kind of understood it, to lay it out for us and have that transparent conversation of like, when
Mark D. Williams<br> 42:16
I would imagine with 800 members, you know, there's probably a fair amount of people on the inside that you could even ask, like, what are some things that we could tear? You know, for deliverables? Yeah, no, I mean, you know, I can only speak from my own experience about what things you know, sometimes the sponsor doesn't even know what they want, or what they don't even know what you can offer. Yeah. And so I assume with the showrooms, you know, just saying, like, hey, we can get hundreds of people that show up. Like, that's pretty powerful. Because, you know, a lot of times showrooms, especially I think, right now post, you know, post pandemic, people are pretty excited to go back and meet with people. But I have to imagine too, like, you know, yeah, I like for instance, as a builder, I get called on all the time, you know, to go to showrooms, and I, you know, I usually will tell the person calling me it's not that I don't want to go, and I'll look at it more so on the curious builder platform, like, is this a place I could host or something like that, but as a builder, most of them tend to be the pretty showrooms, right. It's the, you know, the showrooms where you know, my, they want my clients to come and select stuff. But honestly, most of my clients are women. And they're not asking me, for my opinion to pick out their stuff. It's the interior design group. And so I usually tell the people that are calling me, you know, if you get my designers, and then I'll give you their names and numbers of you know, the top designers that I use, and if you can get them in because they're the ones that, you know, early on in my career. Yes, I used to go to all the showrooms with my clients, you know, kind of just like a chauffeur, I guess. I mean, didn't I do have an opinion, but not that anyone? Really nobody cares? Nobody cares. And so anyway, I guess that my point in that is you are delivering a very valuable service. Because I think as a company owner looking at, you know, how much money do we spend in our showroom? You know, it's always nice to have a showroom, but are people actually using it? And so anyway, every company has their own business philosophy on that. But
Speaker 2 43:56
yeah, so now we have we have annual sponsorships. And then we also have events. Yeah, event sponsorships. And then for our Whelan, wink events, we have events for just that bus tour, or sorry sponsors for just that bus tour. And one of the things we're doing this year is we're going to have logos on the sides of the buses. So when we're going through town, people can see who we are. And when we pull up you you see where we are, I think
Mark D. Williams<br> 44:21
the curious builder might have to be a sponsor. That'd be cool. Have you want to talk about that after? Yeah, great.
Speaker 1 44:32
But it kind of like to your point of showrooms and why they're so important. As a vendor, we always say, I mean, our best tool is our showroom. If I can get someone into my showroom, then I have so much more likely of a chance to do business with them. I can take you out to coffee and tell you a million things about my business but until you see it, you see the people within my business you see the process, you see what we can actually deliver, you're not really going to be one
Mark D. Williams<br> 44:59
There's no things that I really identified in your messaging on your website, and just what you're telling me is, you know, people, we obviously love connection. And we love the camaraderie of knowing that we're not alone. And that's super important. But we also want to learn and kind of level up, I keep saying, and education is a big thing. That was one of your main points. But one of the what I liked about that was in addition to like learning, and always having something of value as sort of like, you know, Masha, you had mentioned that you know, you don't you kind of like to buck some of the social norms. And I just want to share this, because maybe you want and I love this, but you had mentioned when you were back in high school, that when you're on the high school team, you saw that oh, yeah, sorry, this was Leon, you were on the high school team. Why don't you tell the story that in your own words, because this is amazing story.
Speaker 2 45:46
So I learned golf in high school, and I was floored that there was a women's tee, I couldn't even believe it. I was like, why am I going to shoot from this tee? Is that's behind everybody else? Why don't Why wouldn't I start at the same place where everyone else is starting so I can get better? And I can, I can just continue to get better. And so that's exactly how I've always felt is that don't give me a handicap before I've already started.
Mark D. Williams<br> 46:10
I love that mentality. I mean, if I just I feel like that is a super key element to any one who owns a business. Because, you know, you I assume, obviously, we're talking about, you know, in this case, a sexist thing, or, you know, between a man and a woman or the handicap thing, but I love that you identified that at such an early age that let me try. And I think about even as a parent, you know, sometimes as a parent, we often have little kids. And so like, you know, sometimes I'll like actually, just last night, take my little guy want to ride a bike. And you know, sometimes they can do things that they don't know, that they can do and our police are, I believe that our place as a parent, is to help provide a safe environment for them to realize what they can and can't do without being harmed, right, to a certain degree, sometimes getting hurt is kind of okay, like sometimes you got to fall off the bike before you realize how to balance right. But they want to be, you know, in a safe environment. So I guess I'm only bringing that up now. Because, you know, if you're if you are limiting somebody's potential for a wrong reason, like, if you're limiting it, because you think they're gonna get hurt. That's a different conversation. But if you're just limiting it arbitrarily. I just love what you said, I can't really, I can't really articulate how much I resonate with what you just said, Yeah, because I feel like forget the sexier men or women. I feel like as humans, we do this all the time. All the time. People are held down all the time. Whether you're a business owner, an athlete, it doesn't matter what you are it I feel like you know, reality is perception and one things I loved about you guys even meeting is you know Basha, basically finishing your sentence like, you're like, I feel like I'm like, let's start a women's group. You're like, Okay, let's do this. I mean, that, you know, willpower is very underrated. And not that you don't need a plan. Sometimes a plan is helpful, but I had to choose between extreme willpower and a great plan. I think I'd probably pick extreme willpower. Would you?
Speaker 1 48:00
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's the plan bogs. You down. It kind of instills that little fear of failure in Yeah. So you might as well just go go go in the plan. Yeah.
Speaker 2 48:07
Or you stop because you feel like you have to have every single thing perfect before before you start. And if you start, if you do it that way, you're just going to fail. Yep.
Mark D. Williams<br> 48:16
Did you feel never so out of curiosity? Did you stay hitting up the men's team at the mids T? How did you? I
Speaker 2 48:23
did Yes, I did. And actually, I did a golf event with the industry. And I was going to shoot from the men's tee. Because I was on a team of men. And they said, no, no, you're our chances are better as a team. If you go shoot up there. And I said, Fine. I'll do it this darling. Yeah, I ended up getting longest putt on that one. I want to know word for that. That's awesome. I didn't know you are. That's really cool.
Mark D. Williams<br> 48:48
I'd love that story. Well, that's great. Well, back back to wink, I guess this is all part of a wink. Let's talk a little bit about, you know, why did you just decide to be a nonprofit versus a for profit, because looking at it. I mean, the organization, I mean, the board. I mean, this has all the makings of a robust business. And, and obviously, this is my own ignorance. We had Mark ostermalm from the joy collaborative was an amazing human being. And we did talk a little bit about the differences between, you know, a nonprofit nonprofit, which I should probably go back and re listen to my own interview. But I guess why did you decide to do a nonprofit versus profit? And just because you are nonprofit? I mean, obviously, you have sponsors, you will have needs, I assume you have to, there are things you have to pay for walk us through that decision and sort of looking back, would you do that? Would you make the same decision? Well,
Speaker 2 49:41
part of it, I think is that we have, we wanted to really set ourselves apart from other groups in the industry. And we wanted to make it more like I said previously, on a level playing field, we want people to come in and feel comfortable, not knowing that we're not just trying to take their money. You know, we're we're here as honestly part of an organization that just wants to connect other people. And and we also wanted to assist other nonprofits. So philanthropy was something that from day one, I don't, I don't really know where it came from, but we just right away, we said, Yeah, we want to do things like we want to help other organizations in our community, we want to be supportive of other nonprofits, or nonprofits in the industry. So and outside the industry, too. So that was something that we, we just right away knew that we wanted to make it a nonprofit,
Speaker 1 50:36
I go, I think also, like, we know that there's so many small businesses that are part of this industry, like let's say, small designers, or small businesses that are already paying so many dues to other other associations. So whether it's, you know, have the first scenario as ID or and DBA, or all the above or like, like, large, we're part of the commercial industry as well. So we've got all these organizations in the commercial industry to pay dues for to. So we knew it would get really expensive and really hard for people that have the small businesses or maybe are, you know, entrepreneurs to be able to take on one more. So we were like, that's why we said, Let's not turn on dues. And let's be a nonprofit, because we wanted to be accessible for all women in the industry, we didn't want women in the industry to have to pick and choose well, I can only be part of blank, or I can only be part of Housing First, I don't know what I'm going to do want to say, hey, just be part of WINC and show up when he can Yeah, we really
Speaker 2 51:29
didn't want checkbook members, we didn't want people who no bigger companies that just write checks out. And maybe somebody comes and shows up to events, we wanted people to be really involved. And we felt the only way to do that would be to either not charge for any events, or just charge a very small fee for events so that people can choose which ones they go to. And it's not going to break the bank, you know, they've got tons of other things that they're paying, it's super interesting
Mark D. Williams<br> 51:53
philosophy, because I agree with what you're saying. But yet on the attend out, I tried to think about like the opposite, too, because I'm like, if you also have a barrier of entry of some investment, you know, people that are also more likely to show up because they paid for it, they value it a little bit like, you know, somebody at a New Year's resolution is like, I want to run a seven minute mile. And let's just say for this example, they're running 10 minutes, if they do it on their own, they often don't make it if you have a community, which you're very likely to make it. Or if you hire a coach, you are paying. And so by by virtue of you paying for this trainer, you will show up, I think what you've established so well in this analogy, I guess is that you've formed a community that has galvanized everyone. And so people want to be a part of it. And so I think that's very noble. And obviously extremely, you know,
Speaker 2 52:42
it's funny that you bring that up, though, about when we did have free events at the beginning. And people wouldn't show up after RSVP and and that happened quite a bit. And so we realized we did have to charge a small amount. I mean, it's like $25, right? It's not much and so but the people then are more committed to coming.
Mark D. Williams<br> 53:00
That's what I found with I struggled with that early on motion. I talked a little bit about this when we were setting our, you know, I'm very new. I think I've only had four events. We have one coming up Thursday nights
Unknown Speaker 53:08
are awesome, by the way.
Mark D. Williams<br> 53:09
Thank you. Yeah, they're I mean, I'd like to i, and this isn't about me. Well, you guys can hear each other. But the marks event. I mean, I want it to be educational. I never want someone to show up and feel like that wasn't worth it. Like that is not. If anyone says that, then you know, I should probably put like, actually, they'd be a great sales line. If you didn't feel like it was worth it your money back? I mean, I don't know if it's, I think they must clearly do this. Because no, but not enough people return stuff except my wife, the amount of stuff that shows up on my doorstep that we return. It's just mind boggling. But that's just me. But anyway, going back to this as like you want there, you know, you want to deliver on people's expectations. Yeah, you know, for me anyway, there's a form of entertainment. Like I like if I'm going to go somewhere like I want to be entertained to me. And I think when you have a cool community, I mean, it's also a nice touch point, like, hey, once a month, I get to see, you know, not every single person is going to be the best friends. But it is nice to see people on a regular basis. I guarantee there's a lot of friendships that are probably come out of wink, right that exists outside of your monthly meeting. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1 54:06
and then, like Leah said, after a while our events really proved ourselves prove themselves, like we proved ourselves. Our events became really fun and really good and worth it. And so not only do people show up because they paid 25 bucks. It's worth it as well.
Unknown Speaker 54:22
Yeah, yeah. It's not
Mark D. Williams<br> 54:24
just because they paid for sure. Yeah, no, it's just about accountability. And it puts it in a little, you know, gas in the gas tank so that it can keep moving on. And absolutely,
Speaker 2 54:31
then the fun part. I mean, it's really, each showroom comes to us. In the end, they have ideas for what they want to do. At the beginning. We're like, oh, we shouldn't have a list of ideas for suggestions for when you know, someone needs an idea. We've never had to use the list. We're actually kind of disappointed because we have this list of really cool
Mark D. Williams<br> 54:49
ideas. That'd be the list. By the list there that'd be like a sponsor. It'd be like you can buy our list of great ideas. You could monetize some of these. You got to 800 person think tank Yes, yes, yeah. What is the showroom shimmy plug. I want to hear about the showroom shimmy. Yeah. So
Speaker 1 55:08
excited about this. Yeah. So like back to uplifting our vendors. So I think like, what do you want to talk about? Like, what? Oh, sorry. Gotta move closer. Do you want to talk about a little bit how we're different in the way that we uplift our vendors? And then that can go straight into showroom shimmy? And then I can take the showroom shimmy? Or do you want me to just go ahead. Okay, cool. So, um, so the building or industry here in the Twin Cities, it's really tailored to uplifting builders and remodelers and that designers, and that's really amazing. And obviously, we all want to do business with all of you guys. And it makes our industry what it is. But they're also really amazing vendors in this industry. And we make up so much of the home, right, we're all the products in the home and all the services within the home and to the subcontractors, and we found that they weren't really being focused on as much. So there are so many different home tours, which is the best and the coolest, and we all go to them and love them. But what about a showroom tour? Like how do we get the industry to go celebrate the showroom? So um, we didn't last year, and we had to rethink some things, because we made it kind of like the whole month of July, and we had like 43 showrooms that registered. But when you make something all open all month, it's hard from a staffing. You know, from a staffing standpoint standpoint, and from a, you know, July gets busy, and if something's open all month, Are people really going to get around to going to it? So we've rethought it this year? And we're super excited about it. So Greta, put it best. But she said, Why do you go to a wink event? You've got a wink of that, because you know, your friends will be there, you know, you're buying something fun, do something fun, you're gonna network, you're gonna get something out of it. So she said, why don't we make it four events per Wednesday per July of 16 events in July. And that will be the showroom shimmy. And it's just two hours per showroom. And we're going to make it like a lottery, the showroom, submit their ideas, and there's going to be something fun and unique at each showroom. And my idea was, let's open it up to the whole industry, not just WINC members, not just women. Let's get builders. Let's get architects. Let's get designer. Let's get everyone who's not even in wink, but who's part of the industry. So the showrooms are going to invite their whole network. And we're going to as wink going to invite the whole building industry network. And let's all of us join in to celebrate these vendors and the showrooms. So
Mark D. Williams<br> 57:31
give me an example of like a vendor.
Unknown Speaker 57:33
Yeah. So well, any of us north? Oh, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 57:35
so Northland works.
Mark D. Williams<br> 57:36
Yeah, let's use Northland workbooks. So you've got 800 on the list. And let's just say you double it for a bunch of bills, let's just call it 2000. People that want to go to a showroom. How are you logistically setting these? I don't totally follow how you're setting up the times and days? Well, we've
Speaker 2 57:51
got the times and the days already laid out. And at this point, you know, as this podcast is airing, we'll have them all selected, but people will submit that showrooms will submit their ideas for what fun thing they they want. And then we as a board will will do a lottery and we'll pick the 16 showrooms and we'll place them to fit to their time slots.
Mark D. Williams<br> 58:11
So the sell 16 Am I going to pick one Wednesday and hit all 16? Am I going to hit four? How does this however, it fits free. So it's not like a bus tour. It's not all at once. It's kind of like your own buffet, go at your own pace. Do whichever ones you want. You're
Unknown Speaker 58:25
gonna notation to them all. And you can pick what's convenient.
Speaker 2 58:28
Yeah, you can pick and choose which ones you want to go to. Okay, as an attendee, and there will be limits. Some showrooms won't be able to handle as many people how do you set
Speaker 1 58:38
up? Yeah, on Eventbrite. Yep. And then
Speaker 2 58:41
each showroom is going to set their own limit, depending on how many they can take. You know,
Mark D. Williams<br> 58:46
I'm just thinking about it. Maybe we've already done this, but like how successful your bus tours were? Is there a way that you can sort of harness that for the tour? Future idea? Yeah, future ideas start in the more because that's what I'd be interested, like, Yeah, I mean, I could go to some of these tours, but mainly their main reason I'm going to be kind of just taken around for think about it around the cities. And yeah, you know, you start you start with coffee in the morning, get on this bus. And it's a whole day and writing this down, right. I mean, that's, I would do that. Yeah, for sure. It's like, well, because I've already mentioned Yeah, you know, a lot of times people try to get us out to it's not that I don't want to it's mainly a function of time. But if I it's a great use of time. I know you get a lot of builders, and that we could do a wink curious builder collab on this, we could do each do a couple of buses, I'll do all the builders, you know, whatever it is, we could figure it out. But you know, you get a couple of buses. And, you know, I think that would be dynamic. Yeah. So fun is
Speaker 1 59:37
a great idea. I think, you know, this one's coming up in July. So it's two slides now. But I love what you're saying. And the best part about us as the wink board and what I've one of my favorite parts of you know, being on the board is how willing we are to grow and change and take in new ideas. I mean, like last year, we had showroom shimmy and there were things right away. We were like, alright, this didn't work. This could work. This could be better. And so So we'll grow and evolve. And next year, maybe we'll do it like that. And you know, we're really good at let's prove ourselves a little a little at a time. And then we'll take on more and more. Yeah. And last
Unknown Speaker 1:00:10
year was the first the first time we we did that.
Mark D. Williams<br> 1:00:12
Yeah. And that was successful.
Speaker 2 1:00:13
I think so I think it could have been better. And that's why we changed it this year. Yeah. It was just a lot for the showrooms to handle and a lot for the members to handle like they weren't able to go to every event that they wanted to go to, or to every showroom that they wanted to go to. And in so this year, we're going to make it we're going to make it easier for everyone to
Mark D. Williams<br> 1:00:33
how many people fit on a bus.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:36
If 54 If you don't want coolers, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 1:00:39
if you put the coolers below the
Mark D. Williams<br> 1:00:45
the busing industry this is gonna go back to your trucking forgive vessels Holderman the trucks are
Unknown Speaker 1:00:50
gonna have to save up for own.
Mark D. Williams<br> 1:00:56
As we just come in for the end one, I guess just two last questions. One is Tell me a little bit about the wink circles. You know, I like your three C's confidentiality, communication, and commitment. I'm guessing these are small groups that exist outside the once a month. Tell me a little bit about how these are organized, and what it looks like and what you're seeing out of it. Oh,
Speaker 2 1:01:17
Kristin Ryan has actually started the circles. That was her idea. And she had done something similar. It's in the AV industry. And so she brought that idea and basically sent out an email who wants to be involved in this? No, who wants to be a small mentorship group. And everyone that wanted to be in said, I'm in and she organized, the first round of circles. And then people would just continue to meet as they wanted to meet, we would provide some content to discuss you know, if people needed something to discuss, but basically what has happened is it's just turned into really tight partnerships, friendships, mentorships for these circle groups that have stuck with it,
Mark D. Williams<br> 1:01:59
do what the what are the size of the circle groups are to do? Five or six? Yeah, I saw many of them in the mother.
Speaker 2 1:02:05
I think there's four or five right now. Yeah,
Speaker 1 1:02:08
some have dissipated, and some have just gotten so close. And it was so funny. I went to a Nari event. And like it was a whirly ball event. And this group of girls that I Aldo from the industry for Wake, they all showed up and matching T shirts and I was like, Oh my gosh, how'd you guys find this? They're all like, we're in a wink circle together. We've been together for you know, two years now. And it's so cool to see because, and we've had we used to have preset topics for them. But now, they just say, you know, we love the preset topics, but we have so much to talk about anyway. So yeah, they just have connected that way. Have you
Mark D. Williams<br> 1:02:43
and I had mentioned this to Leah, you know, just before we came on, you know, I'm in love with what you're doing. And I think it's so needed for the industry for the people. I mean, there's nothing but great things happening here. And I love what you're doing. You know, I'm looking a little bit market potential, like across the United States. I'm like every state needs this. Are there other states that have in other cities that have things like this? And yes or no? And then be Have you ever thought about like franchising this and like, What could this become?
Speaker 1 1:03:13
Yeah, absolutely. Well, it's interesting, because in that, you know, I mentioned with Welch, I'm on the in the commercial world as well. And in the commercial world, there are like, maybe like three different women's networking groups, maybe for like, it's a thing. But for some reason here in the single family world, it wasn't here. So across the country, I just I don't know what it looks like. But we would either we've talked about it before, if someone comes to us and says, Hey, how do I start a wink in my market? We would love to help them. And that could be part of our growth in the future to franchise we definitely wouldn't say no.
Mark D. Williams<br> 1:03:46
Well, excellent. Well, thank you so much for coming on The Cube builder podcast, I appreciate it. We'll have you know, all the links, you know, wink tag lines in the show notes, I see images. I think it's just is it winc.com
Unknown Speaker 1:03:58
link mn.org.
Mark D. Williams<br> 1:04:00
We have mn.org. Okay, we'll have that all in the show notes. And then we'll obviously have you guys's contacts as well. If someone wants to reach out to you directly. What's the best way to do that is that through the website or through
Speaker 2 1:04:09
the website, all of our contact information is on there. And then becoming a member is easy, actually. Just go on the website, click become a member and then you'll start getting our emails. So again, there's no membership fee or anything so and take any one minute. Yeah, literally takes a minute or less Wonderful.
Mark D. Williams<br> 1:04:25
Well, I can attest to how great you each are individually but also your organization, what you're doing is admirable and wonderful. So thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it.
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