Episode 82 - Scaling Your Business Without Losing Culture: Insights from Kate O'Hara

Episode #82 | Kate O’Hara | Scaling Your Business Without Losing Culture

In this episode of The Curious Builder, Mark Williams chats with Kate O’Hara of O’Hara Interiors about the rollercoaster of business scalability, effective hiring, and the crucial art of knowing when to say no to projects for better alignment. They dig into the nitty-gritty of succession planning in family businesses, share inspiring anecdotes, and discuss the power of community support in navigating industry challenges. Whether you’re a seasoned pro or just starting out, this episode offers invaluable insights peppered with humor and real-life experiences!

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About O’Hara Interiors

Kate O’Hara is an award-winning CEO with extensive experience in creative design, scalable growth, brand development, and digital marketing. Her firm is regularly featured in publications including Architectural Digest, the Wall Street Journal, Elle Decor, and Forbes. She has been recognized as a TX Woman of Influence by Austin Business Journal, a Digital Influencer by Women’s Way, and one of the 32 Under 32 in Advertising & Marketing by the AdFed of Minnesota. In addition to her accomplishments in business leadership, Kate is a sought-after speaker, Krav Maga practitioner, and avid reader and sailor.

Resources:

• Visit O’Hara Interior’s Website

• Transcript

  Mark Williams:

  Today in the curious builder podcast, we had Kate O'Hara from O'Hare and cheers, and we had a delightful conversation. I've known Kate throughout the years, but at this podcast, I was able to dive a lot deeper, which was really, really enjoyable. And I loved hearing her story of how she used education as a springboard into her business. And we talked a little bit about how she decided to balance leadership versus ownership, and taking over O'Hara and Terius, which was a company started by her mother, so we talk a little bit about that dynamic and businesses at large as they seek to figure out how to have succession planning and how you should be thinking about it. And at the end, we talk a little bit about maybe even having a panel of all these builders and designers, you know, just talking about, you know, the things that we've failed at so that we could be successful. So without further ado, here's Kate O'Hara from O'Hara interiors. Okay, so I'll hit and recording. Welcome to the curious builder Podcast. I'm Mark Williams. Your host today, I have a very special guest on Minnesota zone, Kate O'Hara from O'Hara interiors, welcome Kate, thank you. I'm so glad to be here like so we've met you a few times over the years touring many parades. You guys have a huge foundation of interior design, especially associated with the artisan home tour and Parade of Homes over the years with kind of the upper echelons of builders. And I've kind of grown up through my career, I've sort of now be able to hopefully work with you, because now I'm on the same par As the level of design that you have, so I would love to work with you. That would be a dream. Yeah, likewise. Well, why don't you introduce yourself to the audience at large? Obviously, Minnesotans don't need much of an introduction, but a lot of our listeners are across the country, and I know you have an office down in Austin, so why don't you give us a, you know, five minute recap of O'Hare and tears and kind of your journey through it so far? Speaker 1 1:48 Sure. Well, O'Hara interiors was founded about 35 years ago by my mother. It was Martha O'Hara interiors back then and and it was a, really a Minnesota specific boutique design firm that she grew with a lot of success, and it gained a lot of popularity about 15 years ago, I joined the team and had probably my largest impact in the marketing side of things, where we really developed out our website, because That was the thing we had to think about finally, as well as socials, and we we took off a bit. We managed to gain some traction with a wider audience beyond the Lakes Region and and that led to growth. It led to growth of our team internally, and then also opening an office down in Austin, Texas, where we had a lot of family and friends and one thing was leading to another, so we opened an office there, and that has met with a lot more success for us. So we've really been fortunate over the years. About five years ago, my mom decided to pass the baton to me and and I took leadership of the company just in time for the pandemic. So that was, that was an interesting ride in in learning to lead. But, you know, we've, we've come out of it, I think, a better business than we entered. And we're here today, kind of really feeling fortunate for where we are. That's Mark Williams 3:22 great. So much to dive into here. One of the things that I was curious, I just really like slogans, and I like sayings. And one of the things that it mentioned about Martha O'Hara, before it switched over to O'Hara and tears, was that Martha said left the boardroom for the showroom. What was, what was kind of the show, what was the impetus behind that storyline? Well, Speaker 1 3:42 Martha grew up in a small town in Tennessee, so she has those southern roots. And her father, my grandfather, was really successful in small business and entrepreneurship. He seemed to just do really well no matter what he was doing, and he and he opened a number of businesses. So I think she always had that entrepreneurial bug, and I know she did, because she's told me she did. So she went to school for accounting, she became an accountant for one of the big firms, and but always had an eye toward something that she might do one day. And after her and my father's career took them from one house to another, from one state to another, over a period of quite of a decade or so, she decided, You know what, I actually love working on these homes, and I think I could really make something of it. So she let my my dad know that we wouldn't be moving anymore because she was planting some roots in the Twin Cities so that she could start Martha O'hare and your ears. Mark Williams 4:47 Oh, that's okay. That's interesting. I just liked that tagline where it showed up in your bio. And I was like, There's got to be a good story there. Well, I was looking back online just a little bit about even your origin, because I don't know you super well, but I saw that you had gone to the. Carlson School of Management, and I was there for a short time in like, 2003 2004 was that a similar time frame to you as well? Or no, Speaker 1 5:08 for me, it was a bit later. So I after my, you know, college experience, I did get a master's degree. I thought I would be pursuing a career in education. And so my, my first graduate degree was in was in education, but a decade later, and or almost a decade later, in, I think about 2013 so it was about 10 years after you, Martha, my mom said, you know, it seems like you're in a lot of these financially oriented, strategy oriented meetings. And I happen to know that you have not so much as taken an accounting course because I really wanted you to. So I think you need to get some more formal education. It was always formal education was something that is something that my mom has always really prioritized. And so she suggested pretty firmly that I get my MBA. And I had to really reflect on whether I wanted to leave the company in order to do it. And instead, I decided to do the Executive MBA Program, which allowed me to keep working full time and pursue the degree. Isn't Mark Williams 6:15 it interesting when you talk to people, especially business owners, they come from such surprising backgrounds that at this point, I'm actually more surprised if they come from a building background than if they come from anything else, because almost everyone you talk to comes from you know, like, I love education. I've often mentioned that if I wasn't a builder or an entrepreneur, I would be an educator, and I feel like I have a lot to educate people on. I just love the teaching environment. I love I used to be a cross country coach for about 10 years before I had kids, and I just really enjoyed coaching. I think maybe coach it. And somehow I find education analogous to coaching. And anyway, hearing that you have an education background is really fun, and sometimes what comes out in the podcast. As I interviewed, someone once said, you know, they're interior designer and they actually had a psychology degree. And I was like, wow, that's very useful. Because I feel like, as a builder or an interior designer and architect, I think we all have honorary psychology degrees because, you know, we're trying to figure out, you know, what it is exactly that our clients are thinking, and we're reading between the lines. Because not everyone is a A to B communicator. Some people tend to be a, f, Z, Y, back to B, and you're like, Okay, I've got to guess what they really want here. Unknown Speaker 7:27 So right, right. Mark Williams 7:29 I mean, would you echo that as you know other business owners, that some that it seems like more often than not, people have a more diverse background than you often would think, Speaker 1 7:37 absolutely. I mean, there's no question in my mind that having that accounting background really teed Martha up for a lot of success in launching and running a successful small business, and I think that my degree, kind of unexpectedly, has made me a better manager of People, because I have learned how people learn that what motivates, you know, progression, and it's, you know, kids and adults are different, but the way that people learn is, you know, there are correlations there. And so I think that my comfort in that made me probably a little bit better at just understanding kind of how the whole organism of a company's going to work. And when you're starting a company, it's one, two, maybe three people. But by the time I was stepping in to run O'Hare anteriors, we were, you know, in the, you know, over 15 people range, and now we're over 30. So that is different, you know, it's, it's still a small business. Absolutely, we're still very close, and we see each other every week, sometimes via zoom and sometimes in person. But, but it does require a different mindset than the entrepreneur who's just getting started or keeping things pretty, pretty small. Mark Williams 9:00 I think it's interesting. I find it very encouraging. And one of the things that we talk about a lot on the podcast is, you know, financial acuity, and knowing that your mom was a former, you know, accountant, and I know a lot of builders that had corporate careers or had financial careers, and then they've gotten into building and have done very well. Because, you know, I used to say this, saying a lot, actually, was something my dad taught me growing up, is like, you could be good at builder, you could be a good designer and bad at business, and you won't make it, and you could be a bad builder or a bad designer, but good at business, and you could make it. And hopefully you're good builder and a good designer and good at business. You know that you're both, yeah, but honestly, if you can't run a business, or if you don't have a higher level of financial acuity and understanding, like it doesn't matter how talented you are, you're going to go out of business. And so I found it that it's very encouraging to see people come into our industry and do well because they have good financial understanding. And I also. Think that, you know, just financial literacy in terms of, like, what to charge and how to charge and, you know, one of the things that I know for builders, I'd be curious to get your perspective from the interior design field. I feel like my entire career, I've undercharged. I feel like I've finally reached the point where I understand my value and my value proposition isn't for everyone. I, you know, in fact, this week, I had, you know, there was three people that I had to turn aside, not because I wanted to, but simply that the work that they are attracted to cannot be done for the price that they are willing to pay. And they and they and they knew that, they even said in their email, I suspect that I can't afford the work, but we'd like your work, and we'd like to reach out to you. Can you respond a little bit from the interior designers point of view, like how you've seen even your career, and how you I mean, do you think that's fair that? Oh, yeah, Speaker 1 10:50 yeah. I think that, you know, it's one of the most difficult things. Interior Design is an industry that is, I, you know, I always say, we're a small business with enterprise level problems. Builders are the same. It means that we need to really and it's very difficult to understand what an appropriate rate is, because it varies so widely, regionally and and because designers work so differently. Some people will say two different. People can say they're a full service designer, and that yet their process and services might look quite different from one to the next. So it is a, you know, a real conundrum when you know you are trying to price yourself appropriately, and you do, you know, you have to do the math. You have to look at what what is required for this business to run and run well, and for me to get paid and and for this to be successful and sustainable. But then at some point, you also have to get comfortable knowing your worth and knowing that saying no to something leaves space for the right next thing, rather than just to fill that gap, I think, I think that is one of the greater challenges of somebody who's really successful as an entrepreneur and starting up in sales, is that you're very good at saying, yes. I think one of the difficult, the difficult things to learn, and some of the top tier, you know, executors, whether, whether they are builders, designers, architects, or so on, is they have gotten good at knowing when to say this isn't a good fit, maybe because of of billing, but maybe because of a variety of other things. It takes a lot of confidence to turn away somebody who's ready to write you a check and and yet, the willingness to do that is is sometimes one of the best things you can do for your business. Mark Williams 12:48 I 100% agree. I think you're it's funny, because lately, I've been really sort of interested in identifying my ideal client, which sort of also coincides with understanding yourself and your own business worth and propositions and all those things. And I recently was listening to a podcast called founders that I really, really enjoy. And the interviewer just interviews or reads books about famous entrepreneurs like Rockefeller, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, and he is one of his biggest things, is what you just said. I think Warren Buffett's advice to another company that he was considering buying or just mentoring, was simply learning how to say no, and he basically was saying, I say no to most things. And I actually heard this morning, I was meeting a potential investor over coffee, and he basically said, if it's not a heck yes, then it's a hard no and like, basically he's only saying he's only saying yes to the things like he is emphatically like, Yes, and I really appreciate that. And you're right. You look at people that you look around your community, people that have done very well financially, and they seem relaxed, they seem like they have time. And, you know, it's funny, I can just, I have three small kids, so maybe it's just the fact that I have three small kids and I've got 1000 1000 interests, but and it's also a bit of my personality trait, you know, definitely undiagnosed ADHD, so that could be part of it. But, like, I look around and I really appreciate people that are sort of calm, and they sort of can wait for the opportunities to come to them. And I don't know how much of that comes with, like, age and wisdom, because the people I'm thinking of are all older, you know, the gentleman this morning is probably in his 60s. And so I just think it's admirable when the messaging out there teaches people to be like, you know, you don't have to chase every ball down the street. You don't have to like, early you mentioned earlier in your career. Let's call it a strap, you know, kind of a strapping business. Like you kind of say yes to everything, because you sort of feel like you Unknown Speaker 14:40 have to, yeah, you sort of, do you sort of Yeah. Mark Williams 14:44 And you, and you chase so many projects that you, you know, in hindsight, you're like, Oh man, without it, but you don't know you, because you're also it's hard to discount that, because, honestly, you're learning a lot too. And you know how I don't know you can't. It's hard to quantify the value. Of the education that you're actually getting. And I, I have lately, said this a lot too, just that I think you can pay for an education two ways, one is with money, and one is through experience, and both are valuable, and both have their place. And hopefully public forums, like a podcast, like education, like books, hopefully we can learn from each other, so we can maybe avoid some of the more expensive mistakes. But honestly, I look back. I mean, that's really what I do, is just share, I share where I've fallen flat on my face. I'm surprised my nose isn't enough flatter, because I have a pretty pointy nose, considering how, how many times I've fallen on my proverbial face. So, yeah, Speaker 1 15:34 well, and I think that, I think that there is something to understanding that, you know, there is an importance to saying no. It is also a privilege when you get to that point that you can, because you can't right away. It's really it can be, it can be, you know, the absolute wrong choice to say no at one point in your career. And then the best choice you can make for yourself and understanding when that tipping point is starting to occur is, really important, and I can think back on certain things that we said no to that kind of I just, I almost, I wish we'd said yes, but when I think about it, it's like, I think, no, I'm only I'm thinking about it from where we are now, now we could say yes, because now we could handle that volume of work. We could handle that, whatever that project was that we thought we probably can't do this, this, this, and this could hurt our reputation. So there are moments early in your career where you feel like you have to say yes to everything, and you probably do, and yet you're also forming your reputation. And so you might find yourself needing to say no to the things that you truly know you cannot handle. And then you reach a point where you can start saying yes to those things and no to the others. But I think when to your point, the the other side of that coin, of that ability to be a little bit relaxed, is that when you reach that tipping point, you probably have a team or people or agency, or you've got something and someone working behind the scenes, probably not actually behind the scenes, but from anyone looking at you that standpoint, behind the scenes, to bring those opportunities your way. So by the time you're able to really start saying no with confidence, you've got pipelines. You've got various sources of you might have a really incredible repeat and referral pipeline. You might have a lot of clients coming in from your socials or your email marketing, or all of the business development and in person networking you're doing. There's so many ways and avenues you can take, and by the time you're able to start saying no, I think you've probably come to understand what really works for you in terms of making sure that that pipeline's there. And that's when you can relax just a little bit, but only a little bit. How Mark Williams 17:57 much of your saying no do you think ends up being like a gut feeling or initial reaction, and where I'm going with this is, you know, I look back now, it's easy. Hindsight is super easy, right? Man, I should have done that differently. But it's like, you know, I think of some of the jobs I chased the hardest were the ones I should have let go. And so, you know, and it's, it's kind of like you and because a lot of entrepreneurs have a very strong willpower, sometimes you can will things into existence, which is good, you know? I mean, there are times where it obviously is successful, you know. I think of, you know, well, starting a business or keeping a business going, a lot is willpower. And so it's like, you know, you sort of need that sometimes. Do you feel like you're, let's call it the distortion factor. Do you ever get caught up in your own distortion factor, where your own worst enemy is yourself in terms of, in terms of, like, what you say yes to and what you say no to, and how do you look to other people on your team to sort of help, you know, keep you, keep you kind of on the mission objective, or the goals of the company. Speaker 1 18:56 Yeah. I mean, I think that I can just think back to so many moments in my career. There was, there was a moment in my career where I kept track of how many new projects we were bringing in per month, and that was a signal of success. But volume, we're not a volume business. We're a luxury business. So what were we doing there? What was I doing there? So there, have been moments where I've used the wrong data points or KPIs to sort of say this means success. And I think that sometimes, sometimes the loftiness of a project, especially on paper, you know how it looks, what it might represent, can can sort of put, put those rose cup colored glasses over your eyes you can start to forget to look at. Can. Is this a good fit for our services, flat out, and is it like feasibility wise timeline services, the. Availability of the team. How feasible is this right now? But then also, you know, is the is the budget in line with what you know, our expectation is aligned, basically, and, and then, you know, there is that kind of it factor, right where you just have to see, like, Does it feel good? Does it feel appropriate? But I think I like to look at feasibility and aligned expectations first, and then, if there have been, there's certain red flags I look for that. I think we're pretty, pretty much all familiar with that as they arise. If I'm talking to a client, for instance, who is has realistic expectations all throughout the conversation, except in our very first conversation, they're already negotiating with me. That's a red flag. That's a big red flag, because I'm already getting a sense that they may not value our services and time, and if they don't value it from the start, then why will they value it at any point moving forward, where this will be just be a continuing conversation, in all likelihood. So, yeah, I think, though, that the where that kind of echo chamber can really occur is when you know you're talking to someone and they're saying, well, and we have exciting friends, and we're thinking, this might be arch digest, or we think, you know, you start hearing these words that are just music to your ears, and, you know, it's, it's like, probably like dating someone for the first time and missing those red flags. It's, it's easy to do, but it's really, really important, I think, to actually have a methodical way to vet your clients. You know, it's nice to sit down and just say, I get a good feel from them, and maybe that's one of your data points. But there needs to be really specific. You know, there should be like, we kind of have a checklist of of things that we look for, um, and there are certain deal breakers, and then there are certain things that are more like I haven't gone quite so far as to create a cumulative score, but I know a designer who does in New York, and I'm thinking about adopting something similar, because I think it makes just a ton of sense to say, All right, if these deal breakers are not in play, then these other variables that make For an ideal client. They get scored on each of them. And if it's over, you know, 80% we're a go. And if it's under 50, probably not a good fit. Yeah, Mark Williams 22:30 that's interesting. I recently decided we'll see if I can hold two to this. I've decided that, like even internal, I am such an optimist. I've been joking lately. For those watching this on YouTube or the clip, if this comes out, versus the audio, is like, I got my hands in a temple format, but like, I operate at optimism and delusion. Like I optimism, I'm like, right at the apex of those two things, which makes me a really good remodeler and really good energy creator, and getting people excited for their projects. And I tend to just really like and enjoy people. It makes me probably not the best judge of character for people. And where I'm going with this is that, you know, like a good interview style is to mirror people's body language, right? And I've adopted that through sales like, you know, I have a hard time probably being quiet, so if I'm with a stereotypical engineer, someone who's quieter I have to calm down a little bit, versus someone who's in sales like obviously I can get more amplified. But when I hire people, I now looking back, maybe some hires that didn't work out so great. I realized that I was basically telling them what to tell me, and then they told me what I told them to tell me, and then I loved them for it, but basically I was just hiring a puppet because they were just doing anyway. I've joked with my team, we have a very small team, you know, we're four people. And I've joked with my team that I will, for the foreseeable future, will not hire anybody again. I will have my i My team is going to be responsible for interviewing them, and then there's, there's four of us. I'm going to keep a non voting vote, and I have a team of three, and they get to vote, and I don't know, I don't know how it's gonna go, where I'm going with this is how, as owners, do we sometimes have to set up like I'm victim of my own personality, and so my new safety net is to let my team hire the people on our team. So you're kind of having this culture where they sort of get to predict their own culture. How do you you're a team of 30, that's a lot as you've grown as a company, how have you been able to develop and hire and good people? And do you have to, I mean, how do you go through that process and sort of, you know, make sure that you're getting the right people? Speaker 1 24:36 I mean, hiring is one of, I think, one of the most important things that that you do when you're running a business, especially a small business. So we, we have a process. I you'll hear that a lot for me, I think being the person who inherited a business that had been built and run by my mother who, you know, everything kind of passed by her desk there. Were some processes, there were some procedures, but it was mostly, run it through Martha, run it through Martha. And I thought, you know, this isn't going to scale. I The bottleneck is clearly on one desk, and this isn't going to scale. So we need to be able to delegate out, but we also want to ensure our team experiences a consistent culture and a healthy culture, and that our clients have a really consistent, luxury oriented experience. So on the hiring side, I actually quite enjoy this part. We write a job description for every single job. I make sure that it's reviewed by multiple team members, anybody who's going to be impacted by this person. What are we missing? Are we missing anything? And then we post online, and we post to a few different platforms. I think that it's really incumbent upon us to make sure that we're getting as diverse a candidate pool as possible. So we don't just go to one place. We ensure that we're posting with various schools, various organizations and various platforms to make sure that we, we do have, we cast a wide net, so that we really have the opportunity to bring a lot of different people and perspectives into our company, and then from there, I generally will conduct phone interviews. I will be the first interview, which I might surprise people, but from there that, I will narrow it down to probably two or three candidates, and from there, it moves to the team. And then our candidates will go through an in person interview where they meet no fewer than three people on our team, sometimes four, through, like, two interviews on the same day. We're not trying to drag people through, you know, hours and hours of nonsense. And where we can for design roles and roles that have, like, some specific performance needs, we'll usually have them do an exercise. So in a copywriting role, they might actually have to write something during the interview time. We're not asking them to go home and do homework or produce something we're going to sell for for designers, they might wind up doing an anonymous cat exercise. We'll leave them, you know, pepperoni and cheese and and, you know, I don't know, anchovy. And there will be one person in charge of the names and other and another person or two actually assessing, and that's helped a lot those more activity based assessments, because we do really try to hire the person, not the skill, but sometimes the person can mask a real deficit in scale that we can't quite absorb, so that that's really been kind of our method. And then, you know, we go from there, Mark Williams 27:47 you know, I kind of like that. I like the fact that you would have, you know, kind of a practical, especially somebody who likes to, like, right now, I'm sort of into my walking meetings, you know, we're in downtown Excelsior, so, you know, I can get someone on the team and be like, Hey, let's grab a notepad. Let's just walk around the block. And, you know, sort of some motion while you're doing it. But now I'm just, my brain is spinning. I'm thinking like, what, how fun would be if your first interview was to go, depending on the position, obviously, but go to, like, a random coffee shop and be like, I want you to, it's like, I want you to engage the stranger and just have a conversation with them about, you know, home building or running a business, and just see how they act. Like, what is their interpersonal communication skills? Because honestly, for me, personally, I think communication is probably my number one priority for my people, and probably one that I prioritize the highest. Now, to your point, if I'm hiring a project manager or builder, you know, and they know nothing about construction, but they're a phenomenal communicator, you know, I'm going to have to take a second look. That being said, I wonder if I would have the guts to hire somebody that had zero construction because, you know, you hear all the time that you can educate, but there are certain things, you know, some some people skills that might take a lot longer to develop than you know, learning you know about plans or CAD drawings or something like that. Have you ever, have you ever taken a swing on somebody that was just extremely strong as a person, but very weak in a skill set, and then you thought, You know what? I'm going to stay with it long term, because I think they can learn the skill, but their people skills are so strong that we're going to hire them anyway. Speaker 1 29:16 Yeah, we have, we have, I would say, in general, we're looking for people who have either an educational or, probably more importantly, a bit of work experience in the realm that we're hiring for, it depends a bit on that, on the role, though, but yeah, we've, we have done that, and you know, from my perspective, when it comes to hiring, I want to hire people who I trust and who are self reflective and who are good communicators. If someone cannot tell me about what they've done wrong or negative feedback that they've gotten before, if someone tells me I've never gotten negative feedback before, there is a like. Point 1% likelihood that we're going to be hiring them. If someone can't tell me something they feel like they should be working on. Same is true, and it's not a gotcha moment. In fact, we sometimes will send we haven't done this recently, but there we went through a trial, and I actually liked it quite a lot, where we would send most, but not all, of the interview questions to our interviewees and in advance, because, from my perspective, it depends on the role. But if I'm hiring someone for accounting and finance, they don't need to be really good at, like, off the cuff, random questions, they need to be good at a very specific set of skills. So sending someone, I want people to come to us with their best selves. There are very few jobs, although they do exist, where people need to be just on it and always ready with a good response. And if that's that role, we might not be sending those questions out, or we might send fewer out in advance, but I don't think we're we are getting a great assessment of someone, if they're coming in nerves this high and already intimidated because they were talking to two people rather than one and so on. So we will try different things. But yeah, to your point, I if I were given two candidates and one had the greatest skill set in the world, but they could not tell me about anything they ever improved upon or needed to improve upon, and and I didn't get the sense that they were going to be someone I could trust. And trust can extend in a lot of different directions. And then I had someone else come in with a very low skill set, but I thought, I can trust this person. They I can see the energy they're bringing. They're great communicators, and wow, can they reflect and talk about what they've Yes, I received this feedback, and here's what I did, and etc. I know who I'm hiring, and it's not the skill set. It would be to hire the person with a skill set, they would have to be one of a very few people in the state who had that skill set, right? You know, I didn't have a choice otherwise. Mark Williams 32:07 That's funny how one of the things I don't want to lose sight of, just because we talked about it a little bit before we came on, is I would love to talk, you know, we've had a lot of father and sons, husband and wives on as a business, I've had a number of father and sons on where they're sort of in the middle of the transition. You know, the son is going to maybe take it over the family member. And it's so many businesses that are especially in the construction role. I think right now, I heard a stat that there's 10,000 baby boomers retiring every day. And I don't know the actual number of, let's call it four fifths of every business is probably owned by someone in that demographic. So there's a lot of businesses coming up for sale right now, and probably have been for the last five years, and probably will be for the next 15 years. And you know, I don't know where you're at and how much you know you're welcome to share or not share whatever you wish, but just knowing that there's a lot of businesses out there that need to talk about succession planning, they need to think about, how do you buy a family business? What if you don't want to buy a phys? There's a lot of pressures both ways. Sometimes I'm thinking about me myself as a dad. My kids are pretty young, you know, eight, six and four, so I have quite a ways to think about it. But, you know, at some but I'm at least I'm already thinking about it like, man, if they're really passionate about it, I'll find out, you know, probably another 10 years, and I'll have to start maybe making some different business decisions. Or, you know, as a kid, sometimes there's pressure, like, oh, man, I have to take over this business. I don't really want to, but my family started pressuring me. Can you tell us a little bit about your experience at like, what point? Yeah, did you know, as you know, your mom had this business that you wanted to be in it and walk us through some of those dynamics. I think it'd be really educational, Speaker 1 33:42 sure, yeah, it was kind of it was a somewhat gradual process for us. I would say, probably around 10 years ago, it had always been mentioned from time to time. Well, if knober wants to, but I had been getting a degree in education, I hadn't thought that. I know no one thought that I would be taking over this business growing up. However, when I started working for the company, it would get mentioned from time to time, but in passing, sometimes in a lighthearted way, because there still was this thought like, no, she's Of course not going to and but about 10 years ago, the question became a lot more serious, you know, as in, Kate, I need to know. I need to know if you're interested in this. And that was a fair question, but I had to push back and say, well, I need to know that you're asking that, that you are offering me a job, and not, you know, proposing the equivalent of marriage over here, because, because you're asking me to take over leadership of this company. So there is a distinction that I think is important. There's leadership and ownership. And so the initial conversations were about leadership, you know, as opposed to ownership. And I mean the ownership conversation. Is a whole other conversation, but I'm going to talk about transitioning leadership to start, because that was the sort of opening like volley. The opening conversation is, are you going to lead this? And it was very important to me that I'd be able to take over leadership of the company, knowing that I could leave so long as I was not, you know, so long as I was still an employee, because what if a great opportunity came along? But also because I don't want to hate this job, you know, as in, I want to be choosing this every day, just like every other employee does. I don't want to feel an obligation or like I'm responsible for, you know, my family's, you know, legacy or something like that, in a greater way than the job already represents. So for me, a really big part of the conversation was understanding what's your plan B? I need to know that if something comes along, I know my mom would never want me to turn up a great opportunity for myself. So then what, what would the plan be, you know, look like and and we needed to have a conversation about that. And that led to larger conversations about, you know, succession planning and so on. And I think that, you know, to answer kind of the initial question about, you know, how to think about and when to think about those things. I think it's, you know, within your first year of business, frankly, and I don't think anyone who hasn't thought about it is way behind. But just as you create plans, you know, what's your three to five year plan. What's your you know, go on and on plan. You every business owner should have some sort of exit strategy, whatever that looks like. It might look like, here's how we would, you know, pass it on. It might look like, here's how we would sell it. It might look like a number of years, how we would wind it down. A lot of small business owners do a lot of different things, but you are in a much, much more stable position as a company if you're already thinking about that and talking to people who are experts in the field, because there are people who specialize in this part of business, and any one of them will tell you that they Want to know with years notice, not with six months notice that you're ready to do this thing, because there's a lot to consider. If you are getting ready to sell your business, there's a lot that you might need to do to make it appealing to potential buyers. And if you're looking to transition your business to the next generation, well, there's quite a bit internally that might have to be done to make sure that things can move, can transition smoothly, and so on. So there were kind of these two conversations going on. There was the job offer conversation where I was like, where I I think I did take, take my mom by surprise when I said that, because she was thinking in terms of her legacy, and I was thinking in terms of, well, this is the moment we're in now. But that also we need to think about that legacy and how that transition so they were separate from from my standpoint, Mark Williams 38:07 I like that you broke it out the difference between leadership and ownership. And I'm thinking of a good friend of mine who is a dermatology specialist, a Mohs surgeon in the Carolinas, and he had a chance to buy into his practice, and it was a significant amount of money to buy into his practice. And the win is, you're an owner of the company, you get, you know, a share of the profits and all that stuff. He elected not to, because he wanted flexibility. So he took the leadership role, not the ownership role. And then, actually, last year, he and his family took a year off of work. They took a sabbatical, and they traveled the world, and he never would have been able to do that with his family had he taken ownership. And who's to say what he'll do down the road, but I looking as his friend on like, obviously there's a part of me that's like, Oh man, I that looks really amazing. I would love this case. I would really love to do that. And anyway, to me, that's the thought that comes to that. And I've always said it from a parent's point of view, that I just want my kids to be passionate, and if they're like, I wanted to be passionate about this, because this is a hard and I think, and honestly, all businesses are really hard. They can be really great. Just because something's hard doesn't make it's not worthwhile, right? I mean marriage for goodness sakes. I mean marriage is hard, good marriages. I mean your parents don't ever tell you how hard marriage is. And then you're a parent one day and you get married, you're like, wow, marriage you're like, wow, marriage is really hard, but in good ones are and it's not a negative thing. Because, like, you know, I'm a big runner, you know, running a marathon or an ultra marathon, or whatever distance you decide to run, it's hard, but guess what? You keep doing it, because the, you know, the value statement you have on yourself and the feeling you have while doing it. And so I don't think, I mean, hard is hard. And so, you know, regardless of what you think hard is, it's still hard for that person. And I what I want, one of the things why I loved talking about business so much is it's so analogous to so many parts of our lives. And, you know, it's just, it's a reflection of a lot of our values and a lot of our feelings. So anyway, I really appreciated how you do. Linear, the two. How? So how did you then decide that after you were a leader for a while, you decided you wanted to be an owner, or did you know right away, after these conversations happened, that you were willing to do both? Speaker 1 40:12 I didn't know right away, because, you know, it's it was a completely different role and a completely different now, I see completely different. It's not like I spun a 180 right in terms of what I was doing. I had been involved behind the scenes in a lot of the same things that, you know, CEO, Creative Director type role entailed, but now the responsibility was firmly and fully on my shoulders and and that changes. I mean, I think a lot of people have experienced working within a company, and your role, you get a promotion, or your role changes. Now the dynamic changes a little bit. And so I think I just, I wanted to make sure that would go okay. And particularly, since I am Martha's daughter, you know, there's, there's a specific dynamic to that as well. I've always been very aware of, you know, the fact that I am Martha's daughter, and so I need to really show up every day. I really need to, I don't just, I don't just need to earn it in her eyes. I need to earn it in everyone's eyes, because these are the people that one day I might be managing and and then leading. So, yeah, I think it I stepped in knowing that there was a likelihood of what that we would move to, from leadership to ownership. But I also really started focusing on leadership. And I would say, I couldn't tell you, there wasn't just a moment where I was like, Ah, this is it. It just for me. Happened gradually. But of course, I took over. I mean, doing a little bit of math here, I took over six months before the pandemic. So I've been leading through a lot of chaos, and you know, kind of times of crisis, whether we're talking about the pandemic itself or all the supply chain issues that we and your industry are still dealing with, although better thankfully, you know, we're on the mend. And so there's, there's, it's been busy. It's been very busy. It's Mark Williams 42:21 funny you say that. So we had, you know, we had, and I know you've worked with them in the past, but we had JK and Sons on So John, Jerry, or Gary and Jeff. And it was interesting to hear, you know, their story. I think they had shared. I think Jeff came on in like, 2009 and, you know, I think John, it started in 2008 or somewhere around the time. But the point of it is, is one of the things that I like to combat, sometimes people that don't own businesses, or don't know the difficulties of a transition, but in family, is you hear this, this thing, like, oh, so and so got the business handed to them. And personally, I hate that, because they they're so undervaluing what that even means. And I understand it's a stereotype, and honestly, I don't know where it even comes from, frankly, but I mean, I'm not the only one that's ever heard that, but I look at people. And the reason I'm thinking about this and bringing up the story is, you started right before you know, the, you know, one of the great recessions. We've had two in our lifetime. Of, you know, whatever. I can't keep track of all the great and whichever recession is bigger than the worst one. And so they're all just recessions. But like, you learn so much during that time about yourself, about your leadership and so and you know, in this case, you know, while the recession was super challenging, our covid was really challenging in terms of supply chain issues, it wasn't a challenge in terms of sales, because everyone wanted to, everyone was at home, trapped in the box, and wanted to do stuff. So in hindsight, we're like, wow, that. But you know, everyone, if someone said, Hey, you could have as much sales as you want, most people would say, sign me up for it. But having gone through it like it was messy, everyone did a pretty poor job. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, we all would love some do overs on that. And you know, for me, I started about four years before 2008 you know. And going back to the, you know, the creamers that, you know, in some ways, John really started, even though he was the third generation, because his grandpa was a builder, too. Is like, in some ways, that was kind of his trial by fire. And I feel like, if you're in business long enough, you you were still going to get the entrepreneurial trial by fire. I'm sure there's history has plenty of examples of, you know, Second Sons and daughters, or second generations, third generations, that fail because whatever they didn't learn some of the principles that they're, you know, that their four founders maybe had to go through. But I look at these trials as like a huge battleground and testing ground that if you come through them, as you've already mentioned, you've navigated, and you've come out the other side bigger. I mean, you're at now you're at 30 employees. I bet you, if you asked Martha O'Hara in 2012 you'd be at 3030, employees, you would have been like, what? Why number one and two? Like, really? That's amazing. And then you're in other states. And I guess the only reason I'm bringing this up is just how important these trials are to our own personal development. And. Um, yeah. So anyway, kudos to you for, for for, you know, making hay with what you've got. Speaker 1 45:05 Well, thank you. And likewise, I mean, I think, yeah, any it's very easy. It's so, so easy. I've been to conferences. I've heard people speak. I almost always get a little panicky at some point during a conference, because everyone goes up on stage and talks in absolutes and says, if you're not doing this, your business is going to fail. And you're thinking, I'm not doing exactly that. And so I've had so many of those moments that I think it's just so important to acknowledge that we're always on our website, on on our socials, we're always putting our best face forward, and we're trying to do our best to represent ourselves well, but it doesn't mean we're not working hard behind the scenes, and it doesn't mean that it hasn't come without its struggles. And you know, we've all hit every business I mentioned to you earlier. I think that businesses that are on a growth module, and not not every business needs to or wants to grow. Some businesses say we are very profitable and very happy exactly where we are, and so this is where we'll stay. And that's lovely. I mean that I champion that. But for businesses that want to grow, you have to go into it knowing that you will hit milestones, and they will be moments of great celebration and great growing pains and and the team that got you to one milestone may not look exactly the same as the team that gets you to the next because it takes different skill sets and mindsets sometimes. And, and you will also, if you're running a great business, you will also be very fortunate, I think to find that you have people who stay with you for a long, long time. I mean, most of our team members have been with us. We have some people who are new because, of course, we've been growing. So I guess I can't say most, but a lot of our team members are more senior. Team members have been with us, you know, 1015, years. You know, they they were. There are people who still predate me at 15 years, and a lot of people that joined in those early years, which is, is really nice, because we've built this together. We've been through it together. Mark Williams 47:13 I think you're 100% right. And, you know, I guess two comments on that is, you know, the glass ceilings, you know, you hit, you hit this wall and you hit this wall and hit this one. You're like, Man, I just can't get through all sudden. You, you know, sudden. You, you know, obviously, what it's the old ad is the first one through the wall gets bloodied up a little bit, and then it's all sudden, like, you know, you kind of go through this damaging phase. You're like, Oh, that was hard and painful. Honestly, I feel like I just, I just went through one, I feel like, the last year and a half, I sort of, I don't know what it is, but I definitely was bloodied up. Who knows? I assume. I hope that's a feeling I've left behind. But I look back at, you know, we went through a rebranding exercise a couple years ago, and it was interesting. And this is where sometimes I think it's really helpful to have people outside of your team. In this case, it was my, my wife, I mean, she's on my team, but, you know, in the sense of like she's not in the company. And she said, you know, you're, you're producing, you're the brand of who Mark Williams Custom Homes is, is no longer the brand that you actually are meaning, like, what the public sees, and her comment was, is, like, we always just kind of went where our clients took us. And, you know, I recently was interviewed and and someone asked, like, what is my what is my niche? And I think I said it, I think it's hospitality. I didn't know, even know what that was at the time. I just love people. And I think, but I think that if I had to identify it, I love pleasing people. That's hospitality, in my words. And then the second part is quality. But you know, back when I built homes that were 400,000 it it's no different than a building home that's two or 3 million. Now, the scale is much bigger. Maybe some of the materials are different, but you know, I was never the cheapest price or value, you know, 1520, years ago, and nor am I that now, in her anyway, my wife's comment was, is, as you've evolved, as your clients have chosen to bring you along, and therefore your brand needs to sort of represent where you are at currently. The only reason I'm bringing that up as you go through these different levels where sometimes, in it every day, digging a shovel, you don't realize how far you've dug. You told, you know, if you told 23 year old Mark Williams, when he started a company, he'd be building, you know, four or $5 million homes, I'd be like, That sounds awesome, but, I mean, show me how you got there. And I think, and it's, and, you know, a lot of people have gotten there a lot faster than I have, you know, I'm looking around at some some of my peers around the country, and I'm blown away at the homes that they're building. And they're like, oh, yeah, we're eight or nine years in, and they're like, light years ahead of me in terms of business acumen. I'm just like, wow. And I'm not jealous, I'm impressed. I'm just generally excited that there are people that have figured out so much quicker than I am. It's very it's an even cross industry, like I look at it, you know, look a firm like yours or an architecture firm. I'm just a big fan of people making it because we know how hard it is, and why can't we all be cheerleaders for each other? And anyway, so sometimes you look on and it's not easy to see people go through growing pains, because we know we've gone through them. And yeah, anyway, I guess that's my Speaker 1 49:58 No. I mean, I agree with you. I really. Do, I think I probably gained you know, within your your little market, the area where you work, we've all got our heads down. We're and we're not always really willing to talk to each other, because we are each other's competition. And I think the thing that really opened my eyes, in a way that was very helpful was when, probably around eight or so years ago, I started going to I started being asked to speak, and you know, whether it was a podcast or a conference, but the conferences in particular, I found were places where I could meet and talk to people within the industry who didn't feel like competition, and so we could talk a lot more freely. And sometimes it gives you that gut check of, oh, you know, we aren't doing that. We should probably be thinking about that. And sometimes it's reassuring. But what I can say is, to this day, I have a, you know, I have text groups and friends who are in New Jersey and Tennessee and California and Alabama, who I talk to on a regular basis, and we cheer each other on and and we also ask each other questions. How do you handle this? What would you do here? I'm not crazy, am I? You know, those sorts of like, I'm not totally off base in this moment, right? And because you can feel a little bit like, Who do you even turn to to ask? Because even a member of your team has probably learned from you and or is taking on a lot of the mindsets or perspectives that you might have because you're all working together and you them. So it's, it is nice to be able to champion each other, but also support each other in a really, kind of real way. And I think that attending all those different things has been just, I can't say how beneficial. I mean, from book recommendations that I've gotten to literally just this morning chatting with a designer about, you know, a success and a challenge, and, you know, just going back and forth, it's, it's lovely. Mark Williams 52:07 I mean, I 1,000% agree. I feel like we have so much to learn from each other. And I feel like, you know, ownership can be really lonely. I think that, you know, the just the amount of social media interactions, podcasts have just exploded across in so many different fields, you know, this being one of them where it really is taking down a lot of the walls that our parents generations didn't have the benefit of, you know, you know, and whether someone was really open to networking or not, just some of the stuff, it's just We live in a different age than we did 1520, 30, for sure, 40 years ago. And I have found that for myself, personally, I've professionally and personally, you know, developed huge amounts the last three years, and I've spoken a lot about it on the podcast. But, you know, the contractor coalition was something that Brad Leavitt and Nick Schiffer and Morgan Molitor, you know, put on and again, my wife said, Hey, I think you would really just knowing I'm such an extroverted person, she goes, I think you would really benefit from going down to Nashville's where the first one was held. And, you know, just having people just share everything that they've gone through in a in a way I don't learn personally in a great way, like in a classroom setting. I learned much better by asking questions and interacting and just just kind of peer to peer. And, I mean, I'll tell you what that was that has changed my career and honestly, my life and for relationships. And, you know, for me personally, I'm a small builder, you know, in Minnesota, and now all of a sudden, you know, I'm having conversations with people all over the country, you know, regular times a day, not only for as Mark Williams, a custom home builder, but as a curious builder podcast, the brand, we have a bunch of other things that we're doing as well in that front and so it's sort of just, I can't believe how narrow of a focus I had and now, with those walls down to your point about communicating on text train with people all across the country. And I do feel like builders probably have a better support than designers do. I mean, builders have the builder 20, do you know what those are? Speaker 1 54:02 Not the builder 20, I'm familiar with the coalition. That's and actually Brad, and I think I'll be speaking on a panel with Brad at High Point. Oh yeah, sure. No, yeah, that's Mark Williams 54:18 all good. He speaks on a lot of panels. And so, yeah, I mean, it's a builder 20 in short, because most builders would know it, but it's funny how many don't. And so it's essentially, it's been around a long time. The Builders Association across the country puts it on, and you get together with 20 builders of your same strata across the country. So let's just pick another let's say you do 10 million in revenue. 5 million doesn't really matter, remodel new home. And you would pair up with someone in California, someone in Oregon, someone in Oregon, someone in Florida. And twice a year, you get together and share best practices. They become your, your people that you and you sign non disclosures agreements, or NDAs, because it's open books, PNLs, the whole nine yards. And then there's the contractor Coalition, which you know, Brad Nick and Morgan don't share their PNLs and stuff like that, but they're showing you the business. Practices. Hey, this is how I market. This how I get brand ambassadors. This is how you get product placement. This is how I do a swarm construction statement. This is how I this is how I do a contract. This is how I take design retainers. This is how I do a whip report. So all these things that you're like, oh, man, if I had had that the beginning of my career, I mean, it'd be light years ahead of where I'm at today, and and then, and then, honestly, I found a spot kind of in the middle. We started about eight months ago here locally what's called the curious builder collectives. I thought it's not quite the builder 20, and it's not quite contractor coalition. It's like a hybrid. We meet four times a year for right? Yeah, that's not tomorrow. So, yeah, when this recording comes out, obviously it'll have already happened, but we, basically, I get, you know, 30 builders in a room, and the only people in that room are builders. We all have a set topic, so it's a little bit more organized, but yet you still just have organic conversation. And people can just share with what they feel like sharing. And you know, if they want to talk about, you know, we'll have, like, we had one in contracts, we had one on banking. We brought in a banker, and we didn't necessarily have a speaker, but we had, like, an expert. We had one. So the one that we're doing with Molly windmiller from lab is all about branding. I feel like building in particular was so far behind other industries in the world, for sure, we're behind designers in terms of, like, brand. And the power of a brand is incredible. And having done it two years ago for my own two companies, the curious builder brand and Mark Williams, like I am now, just like all I want to do is talk about brand, because I essentially am a marketer that happens to build at this point in my career. I just love I love buildings, don't get me wrong, but I really like selling stuff, and I really like brand and marketing. And so that went so well that I had a couple designers reach out to us and say, Mark man, the design community doesn't have even builder 20s. Would you start a design collective for us? So I did. So our first designer collective in Minneapolis is actually the end of September, and our first one is going to be about brand with because, you know, you can do it with builders. And then I had a couple architects reach out to me and said, Mark, would you could we join the designer one? And I'm like, Well, I think it's really design focused, and I don't want to take away from that, but I said, give me 30 days and they'll start one for architects. So I've got an architect one starting in December. And so I guess my point is, I've just been absolutely super charged by this idea of forming these little groups of collectives. And you know, if it works for people, great, they'll stay. And if they find that it's not what they want, it's not their people, they don't that's not for you, too. And I'm okay with that, because there's so there's so much room for education and so much room for peer to peer group talking. And I'm just absolutely and super passionate, as you can probably tell, about bringing these groups of people together. And then, personally, I have a plan to bring all three groups together, like once a year for like, a big, you know, event, or whatever we do, because we do live, live events where I just, like people to get together, Speaker 1 57:49 I'll be a blast. Yeah, let me know what? Yeah. Oh, it's Mark Williams 57:53 everything's on the website, but I'll send you a direct invite too. Speaker 1 57:56 Okay, yeah, no, I think that there's just a real need for as much community as we can make within the space and, you know, and I, you know, and I think that we need to, you know, just keep encouraging each other. Because, yeah, it's it, like you said, it can get a little bit lonely, even when you're running a business with a lot of people. It can when you're when you're the person responsible for everything, there are those moments when you wish you had someone to talk to. And so having that community space, it's, it really is important. I think, Mark Williams 58:31 I think that's safety. I think that's comfort. Because I found, I have found a lot of my mentorships through interior designers that I work with, you know, older designers that have been around longer, and they interact with other builders and be like, by the way, how would you handle this? Or how would in so I do. I've been told once before that we need sort of a industry agnostic group, so people that are not obviously in your industry, that you can run stuff by and then you need one in your industry, so that they sort of speak the lingo. And I have found great value in both and just having but I do think that if you are going to expect honesty, you have to give it. And my, you know, right now, it's a buzzword, but I do believe it, there's no being authentic. And I think if you the most underused word in the English language is, help me. And I think if we could men in particular, you know, I heard this great quote that says, Your ego is not your Amigo, and that's true. And men tend to have a bigger ego, I think. And so sometimes it's harder for us to ask for help, but I do think it's extremely powerful if you ask somebody for help. And I think if you show vulnerability, if you show you, know, I often lead with a fail story, just because it puts the it puts the if you're interviewing someone or a guest or whoever I mean, plus who doesn't love a good comedic fail story, it just helps soften people up. Because, as you already mentioned, of course, social media and websites, we put our best work out there. But you know what? We're a little ducks swimming beneath the surface, doing the best we can. 10 and, you know, we're, yeah, like someone else said, it's, don't judge me on my best day. Don't judge me on my worst day. Judge me what I do consistently in between. And I've always sort of resonated with that, Speaker 1 1:00:11 yeah, yeah. I've, I've actually pitched. I would love to actually at some point, whether it be a conference or high point or something, to be able to do a panel of maybe some perceived larger brands or companies with longevity, where the topic, instead of how to do it right, is, here's what we did wrong and what we would have done. You know, all those sort of hilarious now, but not so funny at the time stories, or maybe not funny at all, but just like they still happened and we still learned. And you know that willingness, I think, to share. I'm not just talking about the time that we, our contractor accidentally drive all the cat into the house. I'm also talking about nothing, but Mark Williams 1:01:00 wow, that's they get the cat out. They just heard it scratching, or what? Well, Speaker 1 1:01:07 the they, we got a call saying, I think that the contractor we have drywalled our cat into the house. Oh, my word. Could you? Could you help? So Mark Williams 1:01:18 I love that. They're they're answered. They're called the designer, not the builder, to get the cat out of the wall. There's some other problems with this story, but that's pretty funny, actually. Yeah, Speaker 1 1:01:27 well, we just cut a hole in the wall. It was fine, but, but then there have been, you know, real serious missteps, and I think there's, I think there's a lot of reassurance to be had in seeing how people who have made it so to speak, hearing how they what they've overcome along the way. Because I think it's it's just so easy to assume they haven't had to overcome much at all. And one of the stories I once heard Kendra Scott speak, and you know, she runs a billion dollar jewelry company now in Austin, based in Austin, and she spoke as a keynote speaker. And the story she told was about just how, actually, you know, kind of financially devastated she was right before she went all in and said, We gotta make this work. I just have no choice. You know, it was the crying on the kitchen floor moment that led to this empire. And you wouldn't guess it. Looking at, you know, stories of her and arc digest and her gorgeous home with her beautiful dogs and so on, you never guess that. And I think it's, it is sort of reassuring to know that everyone has had something along the way to overcome. Every business has those moments and and there isn't one thing you have to always do exactly right. Because, you know, every expert that you hear speak, they, they haven't been doing everything perfectly to be able to speak. You know, their entire career to be able to speak, they, they built up to this particular skill set to be able to speak. And here they are successful. So that thing, they're telling you, you have to be able, you have to do. You have to do. There's a time in their career where they weren't doing that thing. 100% 100% Mark Williams 1:03:09 one thing as we close here, and we'll be a little over time, but it's an answer that you wanted an answer to, and I want to hear your answer to this question. And my so you've obviously been in Minneapolis, and you have a presence here. You have one in Austin. Can you contrast the markets a little bit? And I'll hedge it for the audience this way, in Minnesota, I feel, and this is something you want to know the answer to, I feel. And of course, I'm biased, because I'm a builder. I feel like the majority of the custom home builds come through the Builders here in our market, and then our clients come to us, not all, but most of them. And then we would, then we'll bring it, will introduce the designer, we'll introduce the architect, and we essentially form the three person team, and away you go. And the way that I've always felt that that was, why that's true in Minnesota is we have the oldest parade in the country, and it's consistently recognized as the best the artist at home tour has won a number of national awards. It's the most well run and the most publicized, not only because it's the oldest, but we have an incredible Foundation, an organization in Housing First Minnesota, that supports us on so many different levels. And so the public has grown up. I mean, even though my dad was in a builder, I have lots of friends and peers that you just grew up, that you went to the tour home like, that's part. It's like, almost like the Minnesota State Fair. It's just like, part of our culture, you go to home tours, and then you you as I've interviewed builders, like, there's plenty of states like, I know in Arizona talking Brad, they don't even have a parade. Homes like zero, and their homes are incredible. Anyway, I had interviewed another builder from Texas A while back, and she had kind of said, well, in different parts of the state, that people go to the designer first, and then the designer sort of introduces them to build partners and to architect partners, and then maybe you go to New York, or you go to, you know, California, and maybe it's the architect first. It what has been your experience, because you operate in both and what's your opinion about what I just said? Do you find that to be true, or is that inaccurate from your point of view? Oh, no, Speaker 1 1:05:03 I think that's very accurate. We it was a bit of a like industry culture shock when we moved. You know, well, not moved, but opened, I moved for temporarily to open things up in Austin. And yeah, there's really no question that Minnesota is a state that is really builder forward through via, I mean, housing, first, formerly HBA, has been, you know, incredibly, incredibly powerful as a force in the home industry. The home tours are hugely impactful. And I think climate actually has a lot to do with it as well. People often are choosing builders who can, who are going to build the just really, really well for the climate and and even, even if I've heard conversations around, when can we break ground, you don't have to wonder about what's going to be frozen in the south. So, you know, the builder, builders do get to, kind of do absolutely, kind of become that first point of contact for custom builds. Now, it's different for remodels. I would say that on remodels, designers often get the first call in in the Twin Cities. That's been our experience. So we get the calls for the remodels. Builders get the calls for the the builds and, and then architects kind of get a mixed bag of those things and, and they also get brought in, I think, by both of us. You know, we were just today, you know, recommending it an architect for a remodel that we were brought into first. So in in Austin, it is different because of the climate. I think that in addition to the Home Tour aspect, and you know that AIA tour down in Austin is huge, and the other tours aren't quite as well established and visited. But I also think that there is just a little bit more things can get a little bit more fanciful, architecturally in and I think that it's largely again, going to go back to climate. I think climate considerations build and structural considerations in the north need to they create sometimes the best quality homes, because the homes have to be built to really live well and to withstand so much. But then in the South will sometimes see just kind of wild and crazy ideas that you don't as often get to see in the north, because in order to make some of those ideas work and actually function in the north, it takes so much more, and for most people, they'll wind up saying, I don't know if this is worth it. That's that's been my feeling. I also think that in the South and in other markets, sometimes it's the realtor, some like Realtors actually lead the way and developers. And sometimes, yeah, it can, you can go under, and sometimes it is the designer. It really, really does depend on the market. And in a state as large as Texas, it can change from city to city. Mark Williams 1:08:25 Excellent. Well, I could talk to you all day. You've got so much to share. I appreciate your time coming on the podcast and sharing your story and and going deep. We'll have all your links in the show notes for people that want to reach out to you personally or professionally. You mentioned you do some speaking gigs. Is that best through LinkedIn? Is that best through, you know, O'Hara interior design.com or what's the best place to reach out to you personally? Speaker 1 1:08:48 The best place to reach out would be design at O'Hara interiors.com and you can find that just through our website or via Instagram. We check all of our messages there. And yeah, I attend a lot of conferences. I do a lot of speaking, and I quite enjoy it. So feel free to reach out. Well, I'm Mark Williams 1:09:05 gonna have to pick you up on that panel. We'll chat offline, because I think that would be a very fun panel. Absolutely. I love it. I mean, think of, think of how fun it would be too. Because especially, you know, and especially celebrating design, you know, which is usually the fluffy, the beautiful and all that. But like, you can almost make something fun of, like a Halloween one. Honestly, it would be like, which would be just like, you know, stories, or like, like, you know, make it over the top, which is probably my style, but just like, you know, the losers panel, or like, you know, make it like epic fails. Because, like, honestly, who wouldn't show up to listen to, you know, three or four panelists share their five worst stories, and then you would talk about it like I want to go right now. Sign me up. Yeah, yeah, Speaker 1 1:09:44 no, throwing any clients under the bus. But there are tons of crazy moments that just wild moments. That's Mark Williams 1:09:52 another one you could have a crazy homeowner one for sure. In fact, I had my lawyer on Steve yack. He's amazing about four. Five episodes ago. You have to check it out. And it was, uh, he actually teaches a class called crazed homeowners. And I stuck that one is gonna go bananas, because, obviously, nobody used any names. But as a lawyer who's represented hundreds, if not 1000s of builders in his career, you know, some of them decades past. I mean, he can kind of speak high level of just some dramatic examples. And anyway, too, if you're interested compelling, it was good. Well, thank you very much for coming on. Appreciate your time, and we'll tune in next week for everyone listening. Thanks. Unknown Speaker 1:10:30 Thanks so much. Bye.

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