Episode 16 - Mike Schmillen of River Tile and Stone
Rivecity Tile and Stone: A Pro's Pro when it comes to expert knowledge in tile and underlayments. Committed to being the experts for the builders and GC's they work with.
Mike owns River City Tile and Underlayment and explains in detail the amount of labor involved in building a shower and laying tile, all while balancing a schedule considering the necessary setting time. They are experts in pouring underlayment of engineered concrete for other tile companies and builders. We walk through the different tile and porcelain products, discussing the pros and cons of each installation. We also discuss the lack of exposure to trade jobs among high schoolers and how we can help promote them for our generation. Mike then shares his story of how he utilized his background in lumber sales to expand the tile business he initially bought into, eventually owning it outright. We touch upon the fact that college may not be the only path to owning a business and delve into Mike's experience as a business owner. Asking for help is a crucial way to grow any business, along with committing to your partnerships. Come for the knowledge, stay for the insight!
Listen to the full episode:
About Mike Schmillen
Mike Schmillen is the owner and President of River City Tile & Stone, River City Underlayment, and Mountain Grit Surfaces. Mike has a diverse background, starting with installations in high-end residential homes. After recognizing the need for a further challenge and the drive for eventual entrepreneurship opportunities, Mike proceeded into a career in material sales, and business management, and eventually realized the goal of business ownership.
Mike brings a well-rounded view to all aspects of his company while realizing the importance of having the right people in the right spots within an organization. His companies are all well-staffed with professionals from drivers to Installers, to Project Managers. All of the employees are key components and all extremely valuable to successful installations and satisfied customers, which is River City Tile's key business principle.
Mike enjoys spending time with his family, outdoor activities, western hunting adventures, and serving on multiple wildlife conservation organization Boards and Committees.
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00:00
Welcome to the Curious builder Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host today I'm with Mike Schmeling with River City tile and stone. Welcome, Mike.
00:06
Thank you, Mark. Glad to be here. Good to see you again.
00:09
It is it's so we've been working with you now for probably over a decade, I would imagine. Yeah, maybe younger.
00:15
Yep, definitely. You did some work right before I was with River City with us. And definitely since I've been there, which is 1010 plus years that have on the company so
00:25
and for those listening who don't know what it is that you do want you to give us a quick bio on on what it is that you guys do.
00:31
Yeah, we're a little different than most tile company. So we work with builders and remodelers, we're tile installers, we provide the tile, install the tile. We've also got a floor prep business. So we pour floors, we do cementitious under layman's epoxy, stuff like that. So we've got a couple different market segments that we're in, but then that part's kind of new to the business. Right, the epoxy, the epoxy side, the coatings, urethane cement that's fairly new. That's actually really new. So yeah, I'd
00:58
love to talk to you a little bit more about that later on in the show. Yeah. What, what percentage of your work is with builders and remodelers versus let's say retail people calling me off the street or finding you? That's
01:08
a great question. So right now, I would say 95 plus percent is through builders and remodelers general contractors on some of the commercial underlayment stuff that we do, but yeah, I mean, for our tile stuff, it's it's 95. Plus, you're a pro's Pro. We're a pro's Pro, try to be somebody's got to be the expert out there. Builders rely on us to know what's going on to be up to date with the people that mandate what we do the tile Council of North America predominantly. So you've got to have an expert because your customers are relying on us you relying on us to be kind of in the loop on what needs to happen out there. So
01:45
yeah, and tiles obviously been around a long time, hundreds if not 1000s of years, I would guess. Right. I think of like, you know, the Parthenon? And yes, big chunks of marble. Absolutely. Right. But the adhering process and some what are some of the technology changes that have been happening, let's say the last decade or two, yeah, now,
02:03
lots of changes with waterproofing, mortars, grouts, big time, things have changed a lot, it's actually gotten a lot more complicated with that. But we can do a lot more with the product. So it kind of used to be, you're gonna have your mortar, you're gonna have your standard grommets, you're gonna use cement board backer, you're gonna put a you know, a vinyl pan liner in there. And that's going to be your shower. Nowadays, we're using all kinds of different topical waterproofing systems fabrics, we use a kind of a hybrid system, we double up on it a little bit. So we do a mud base. We do a waterproof fabric, and then we do a liquid waterproofer over the top of that, is that the Red Guard? That's actually we use different products. But the same? Same idea. Yeah, exactly. Same idea. It's a little bit different formula. But yeah, so it's funny.
02:51
So we have a house in the great homes right now. And someone was just asking, like, what is the shower cost? And I told them like, hey, this shower, you know, on a higher end home, it just the shower is let's call it 10 to 12,000. With the tile and install? Yeah. Like, how can that be? And I was trying to explain to them how much labor you know, goes into it. I think people think it's just the tile that they're picking, like, Hey, I picked out a tile, that's eight bucks, 10 bucks, 12 bucks, 20 bucks, whatever it is a foot. And they're like, Well, that's what it should be. There's not that many feet. Yeah, just I mean, this isn't how I plan on starting the show. But it's we'll get right to brass tacks for the business owners listening. Walk me through and prospective buyers. Like how, how much time is involved with just a single shower?
03:31
Yeah. So typically, we're going to look at a shower, just a standard sized shower is going to take us for sure over a week, it's going to be somewhere in that seven day range. Depending on the products that you're using. You can kind of correlate it to the more expensive the system you're using, the quicker you can get it done. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, you typically can. So the old school, the way we used to deal with the pre slow pan mud beds. So that kind of the way people did it forever, really hard to get that done properly in less than seven days. You can do it on a smaller shower now, but it's got to do with the size of the shower and all that. But
04:06
is that just the drying time in between applications? So let's say you know, an eight hour or 10 hour workday, whatever you guys are doing, how, like, how much time would they be in that let's just say single shower. Because a lot of times as a GC, you know, I'd be like the towel guys are gone. Well, they were probably there for two hours to do whatever, like walk me through, like the actual hours like per day that they can actually even do anything to do that in a week.
04:30
Yeah. So if you're going to do like the old school system, you're going to do a pre slope and then you're going to put a pan in and you can sometimes get away with doing that the same time the pan is kind of like figure the kind of look at it like the pool, you know, the liner, yeah, that's in there. And then that's got to sit in, you're gonna do your mud bed over the top of that that's going to sit so those processes are all going to take a couple of hours, but they're going to you're going to wait a day right between so then you're going to have your topical waterproofers so typically those are going to get Two coats, you're going to put a coat on, you're probably going to end up putting the second coat on the next day, you might be able to get one on at the end of the first day or that same day, then you can start actually looking at possibly putting some tie line after that.
05:14
So you already three days and four days in. And I assume that's obviously why, you know, scalability is so important for you. I can imagine what scheduling like is for you. You know, I've been doing this for 18 years. And I'm asking you questions that I should know the answers to. But, you know, half the reason that I'm having this podcast is the curious builder. I'm very curious about now. Yeah, more so than I was even in my youth actually, early on. When I when things were slower. I think in like 2009, I had this idea that I wanted to work two weeks with every single subcontractor, they won't have to pay me. I just wanted to be there to like, see what they what they did. I still think it's a great idea. Now we're way too busy. Yeah, kind of tied to it. So I guess we'll just do it one hour at a time on the podcast. But you know, if you have five bathrooms in the house, now, you could keep a single tile guy busy, though. I mean, is that how you schedule 100% of your schedule?
05:59
Yeah, so the scheduling part of it is hard every single week is different depending on what kind of jobs we have. And you're exactly right. So if a Jobs got two, or three or four or five showers in it, we're going to be able to staff a significant amount of people there and keep them busy. If you've got a one shower project, like a remodel or something like that, that's a lot more difficult. So now we've got a guy that's going to probably go there. Hopefully there's a bath floor or maybe a tub surround or something that he can work on in between those layers. If not, he's going to have to go to a different job cost a little bit more, because my guys are mostly salaried guys. And there are hourly guys, and they're, you know, on the clock on the road, going to another job and all that kind of stuff. And so there's a lot of scheduling difficulties with it. It's pretty tough. So luckily, I've got some guys that helped me out with that and do a wonderful job with that. So thank you, Erin, for handling the scheduling part and taking it off. Holy moly.
06:51
It's a tough job. But no, I Well, knowing it more now than I did before. I mean, the one thing people ask sometimes the difference between building a room or remodeling a home versus building a new, some advantages of the new home is, you know, if I order something that takes a long time, I've got this long window, let's say at home takes 10 months to a year, you know, I've got some pieces that need to be sequential, obviously. But some can filter in later. Like, you know, Windows obviously, are famously backordered right now, just because of demand. And we had one window that was I think nine months delayed from when we ordered it. So we put that it was bifold door, we put it in about three weeks before the show and had to you know, everything else was done. Right. You can't wait around that. And every once in a while you'll see something that's way backorder. But, you know, I guess I guess the reason it's applicable is just from a scheduling standpoint, you have more time where remodel standpoint, we don't even start a house now until we actually have the windows and same with tile. I mean, we're really aggressive early on in the process, getting you guys involved with the interior designers, you know, once we signed the contract tiles, I think number four on my list to get going. Because you guys are early enough in the process. And just with lead times right now, we want to make sure we're not waiting on it.
07:56
So you mentioned some of the stuff like the Parthenon and some of these, a lot of this stuff still comes from Italy and Turkey, a lot of countries like that. So now we're dealing with containers, we're dealing with customs, there's all kinds of stuff that flies, the flies up, the good news about tile is you can always just reselect it. homeowners don't like it, builders don't like it because you know what happens? I mean, there's we got to get designer re involved in it. They don't want to do it, you gotta get a homeowner re involved in it. They don't want to do it. I've got to get myself and my staff involved in it. They don't want to do it. But at the end of the day, at least there's an out where if we're talking a window, I say you're not re selecting a window. You're just waiting for the wind.
08:33
Right. And that openings probably already framed up. It's already there. Yeah, I see what you're saying. So like, worst case scenario that that ship sinks. Yeah. With your titles on the Titanic. Sorry. Yeah, make it
08:42
the good news is there's something that looks just like it. I know. It's not what you loved and you really want but yeah, we can get the sitting room to reselect something and write and take care of it.
08:51
Oh, nice. Yeah, walk me through some of the different platforms of the business. So you'd mentioned underlayment lunch, explain to the listeners, you know what that entails? Exactly. Because you do that almost like is it for other tile companies. If I understand that correctly, we
09:03
do Yeah, we saw our business, our customers, our other tile contractors, other builders that are doing like in floor heat projects and stuff like that, and we'll get into a little bit of that and then general contractors to so that product that we that we pour is it's a cementitious product like concrete except it's super thin, it's engineered, it can bond down to regular concrete, OSB, plywood, things like that with the right primers and it can be poured ultra thin so we can pour it like the thickness of a credit card, rail or up to Yeah, depending on the product up to even three inches deep with some of the products most of them we don't pour over an inch deep at a time, but we can put additional lifts on it. When we use it for commercially typically it's going to be for flattening a floor. So you get into a commercial space and they're going to rip out the flooring, put a new floor in. Somebody's got to come in and make sure the floor is smooth enough. For whatever, vinyl or tile or carpet that they're gonna put in there. So we come in there and it's a, it's a niche business, but we get in there with our equipment, we've got several different we've got four, five pumps now that we use to, for different situations,
10:15
this separate trucks or you'd have multiple pumps in a single truck, we have
10:19
a couple of different trucks, but there's only one pump in a truck. And one of our pumps is actually a trailer. So we've got a few different ways that we can tackle these things.
10:27
Is that for site access, or for capacity, or both
10:31
off, yeah, so depending on what product, we'll use a different size pump. So if we've got to just it's the scale of the project, right? If it's huge, we're going to use one of our bigger pumps, that's our trailer pump. And if it's a smaller lot, a lot of our work is just a couple of bathrooms for a tile guy or a builder. And on those, we're just we've got a truck that's all set up. That's super mobile, we'll hit like three, four jobs a day, and go hammer him out. So
10:55
in what as soon as a separate crew, like the guys that I see doing tilework would never do that. That's like that's totally, totally separate. Interesting. How do when you're looking for the work to do this? Why? Why are you pitching this product? You know, I know there's other mats I just called dietro mats or the you know, I've seen it where they you know, they take a rock and put it on the floor. I mean, just walk me through why? I mean, because I've only ever used you guys really for tiles. Yeah, to me, this is the right way to do it. I hardly even know what the other systems are. It is the right way? Well, I know it's because I've got a pro's Pro. But for those out there that are doing a different way, what is the superior? Why is this you know, such a better product, there's
11:31
a couple of reasons. And it depends on what your application is. So and you've mentioned a couple of different things. So there's just a regular tile backer, so if it's just for tile backer, the other ways you can do it is you can use a mat, like Detra would be an example of it RT x as one called FlexBall. And there's a lot of them out there. Those are good products. The bad part of those is they don't they just follow the contour of the floor, right? So you're not getting any flatter, really. So we are achieving really the same thing. We're creating a solid substrate for tile, but we're flattening the floor at the same time. So if there's a low spot, which you'd be surprised, I mean, new construction, actually new construction has gotten worse. As far as frame quality goes, in my opinion, when
12:14
you think that's the material or that the labor or both?
12:17
I think it's it's probably mostly the labor definitely just gone too fast. Skill. Yeah, less skill to fast all of the above, I believe. So we see quite a bit of it. And framers, it's hard to find good framers. I mean, it's, I don't know if it's, if it's just a dying trade, or if it's just the the spit men probably speed too. But definitely frame quality has gone down. So there's a lot of floors out there that require, if you're going to put a tile down, that's over 15 inches long, that's considered a large format tile by the title Council of North America. And for that there's, there's certain flatness requirements that you should have. So any tile setter that goes into a room should be checking that and saying, This doesn't meet our tolerance, we need to do something here to make this flatter. Here's our options. And it might be a mud set, where you can literally go in with a sand mix and and flatten it out with that that's a tunnel labor, it's got to be three quarters of an inch thick, at least. But you can get a flat floor doing that that's that's a super old school way to do it. The other option, if you're gonna get a flat is to use a self leveler. So that's what we do.
13:26
I mean, right? But it seems I mean, you just mentioned was that three quarters of an inch for the old way he can go down to the use of a credit card. Yeah, so
13:33
quarter inch is really if we're gonna go over plywood, we're not going to go any less than a quarter inch. And you gotta remember if just because the deflection cuz yeah, so the products over plywood, they're typically going to need to be a quarter of an inch, there's a lot of fibers that we need to add to it or laugh that we need to that has to get covered, I say so we're not going to go a quarter inch or a credit card thickness or feather edge is what we call it, but we're not gonna go that thin over plywood. But we can go quite soon. You know, it's a half an inch less than, than a mud set.
14:01
Right. So yeah, it is that mainly do when you're trying to line up floor heights. I mean, it's that's the reason you're messing around with heights. I mean, I know we struggled with this early on. And you know, as soon as I walked I think they call it the California step right where you got tangled. And I was like, no, never again, I never want to see a California step and one of my homes unless it's a remodel, you have no choice. But I mean, you know how particular I get on this. I'm constantly asking the PMs and everyone to double check it because, you know, it's something on the front end, if you design it right, you never have to worry about, we're holding it down to inches. And that's a trust design, we tell our architects would write on the plans. And that's a
14:33
beautiful thing. That's the way to do it. And if you give yourself that much room, you really can achieve a flat transition every time you really shouldn't be able to and there's thought that goes into it. When we go in there we've got to understand what the adjacent floor covering is. Are we talking by basing unchartered waters at three quarter inches at carpet? What do we put next to it and then we've got to take into consideration our mortar thickness, our poor thickness, and our tile thickness and tile Have tiles are anywhere from a quarter inch to three quarters of an inch thick depending on what the product is. So
15:05
I've always been kind of warned off probably from you. But why is it cement tile has such a bad rap me because it looks cool. You know, you see it on Instagram, you know our customers are coming in saying, Oh, I liked this print. And I've come to hate it. We hate it. Oh, yeah. Probably why? Because you're telling me you hate it. Why should I continue to hate it
15:24
I use you shouldn't you shouldn't continue to hate. It's not it's that's the wrong phrasing. There's just more that goes into it. So the cement tiles, there's a couple of things with them. They're thicker, they're always thicker. So we got to take that into consideration. That's not really that big of a deal. But what is important is there's a lot of pre work that needs to happen. And there's instructions, every one of them's a little bit different, but you're going to probably be preceding it. And we pre seal them because it's porous. Yeah. Yep, the porosity will suck the moisture out of the mortar. And then you can have some issues with that. And you can get some picture framing from it, which is, if you've got a product that's super porous, and you grout it without sealing it, it'll actually draw moisture in and you can get like a picture frame around the tile.
16:08
You know what I didn't know that was a I know what you're talking about. But I never know there was actually a terminology. That's a big deal for him. Yeah, so that only happens with cement tile. No, no,
16:17
no, pour any porous tile it can happen to so we'll analyze every tile that we get. And even if there's not a recommendation from that manufacturer, we'll look at it and decide if we're going to wet it, seal it what we're going to do to make sure that we don't have any problems what is waiting to do? Well, if we're going to just wet the tile a little bit so that it's not drying so much moisture out.
16:36
I see. So you like predicting a bucket of water? Exactly.
16:41
Wow. Lots of tricks out there. So and it depends on most of them. Most of what we put in nowadays is porcelain. Porcelain is a great product Porcelain is the best practices out there it's it's the most durable it's the most colorfast certainly, as far as installation goes it's going to be the typically the simplest kind of standard mortars and everything worked fine for it. So
17:06
is that also usually the least expensive
17:09
ceramics and porcelain is typically that that's that's a tough one to answer because that's all over the boil over the barrel
17:15
so even though it's a porcelain doesn't mean it's necessarily economical.
17:18
Not necessarily No Yeah, but there's a lot of options out there there's way more porcelain options out there than there's going to be anything else why is that? Probably the durability and you know, ease of shipping or ease of installation? Technically I mean it's going to be less to install porcelain typically than any type of natural stone or cement or anything like that.
17:37
I still I mean as a as obviously a tile pro I'm guessing you like natural products
17:43
I do yes I do.
17:44
I find that for me it's like luster right I can see how light plays off of it even now like in countertops which I guess you guys know obviously more and more porcelain tile countertops we get called on by companies that do that but I still like granites marbles. There's i i When I look at it, it's a feeling I get and it's also if you really know what you're looking for there's a bit of a sheen on the light is right
18:05
because doesn't look fake. That's totally what it is.
18:08
Right? So firstly, yeah, I mean, anyway, natural stone is I'm a
18:13
natural stone guy 100% So when I'm putting stuff I've got, you know, various things in my house, but most more there's more natural stone in my house than the average house I would say
18:22
in in you build obviously, you know, we're a high end builder. You know, most of our stuff is between let's say a million and a half to 5 million and you do stuff probably anywhere from a couple 100,000 to 10 million 20 million and we've done stuff with some some big hitters, once you start getting up, you know into the multimillion dollars is pretty much everything stone or you'll still see porcelain at those prices.
18:43
Porcelain Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Every buyers a little bit different on what they're what they're trying to achieve
18:49
designer I assume a lot of designers to 100% a lot
18:53
of those houses architects are specking it too so you know, we've done several several of those with you where the architects actually specking that some of the tile Yeah, there so yeah, so a lot of that gets driven that way. And it's I think it's more what the customer is ultimately wanting, do they want something that's super durable, are they going to be taking their shoes off and their mudroom? Because if you know if if not put put a porcelain in, right, you know, you're gonna have scratch tile.
19:18
So a question for you. You did one for us a couple of years ago on Lake Minnetonka and Minnesota here, and it was a single sheet of porcelain tile. And you had the big suction cups like you have you know, and Mission Impossible in your climbing glass building. Same things. I heard those things can hold like 300 pounds or something like
19:37
higher than that. Excellent. Really? Yeah, some of them there. They all vary.
19:40
Tom Cruise must not have had one of those when he was climbing that Dubai tower. Yeah. Almost fell off. Yeah, yeah. He should have he should have come to River City town.
19:46
Bondi proud. Yeah, come on, buddy.
19:50
So we diverted it just a little bit there. My question is, is those how often do you do though, so for those listening, describe what I'm discussing a little bit and some Then the pros and cons and that was really impressive to look at. Yeah,
20:02
they're cool. So it's a it's a porcelain product. It's a panel. They're anywhere from well, they vary in sizes, but the the large format ones are four foot by eight foot or five foot by 10 foot. So you can encapsulate like a whole shower wall with one piece of tile or a floor or you know, we do a lot of fireplaces and stuff like that. We do a lot of them. We've actually got three that are scheduled right now that I can think of off the top of my head projects that are those one of them is a house in Eden Prairie that's I think, got six bathrooms that are all panels. Oh, my Yeah, a lot, a lot of money in that one. But yeah, it's, they're very cool product. So we cut them on a scorn snap cutter. But that's obviously it's a table.
20:51
Don't cut them themselves. So they pre manufacture them, you do a job, say, on the job site job site. So if you had let's say, a four by eight, sheet or whatever, and well, let's just say that was the finished dimension, how much more extra do you order? That's already pre Don's like, what are you cutting away?
21:06
Yep, so we we actually do a layout before we order it. So we're going to do a full layout. With the designer, we have to work with the designers pretty intently with it because there's veining you got to consider and some of them are bookmatched, where you've got to put this one next to this one and that kind of thing. So we'll figure out exactly how many panels the finished shower or fireplace is going to take. And then we're going to probably order two extra panels, just what happens with these things. They're actually super brittle, when you're carrying them around, getting them to the jobsite, getting them up to the room and when you're actually snapping them because you actually score it and then break the cut pieces off. And it almost always works. But it doesn't always work.
21:52
So you do one out of 10 off and you actually need one of those extra pounds. Yeah,
21:56
maybe maybe one out of maybe, probably not quite that many breaks. But yeah, maybe one out of 21 out of 15 Something like that you're gonna you're gonna find some that break. It depends on how, how much you're breaking off. You know, corners stuff, like there's a lot to deal with it with with those. But if you once you get them on the wall, you got to have great coverage coverage, meaning the amount of thin set that's bonded and secured to the substrate, which so we shoot for 100% coverage early on everything, but it's really important with those. But once they're on the wall, super durable, you got a porcelain product with no grout joints. So it's really a it's a superior system, once it's installed. So we've been through training and all that because there's
22:39
not when you did it for us about I think it was four years ago, we built that house. I think there was only like two or three companies in the metro area that could even do that. Yeah. How many are there even today in Minneapolis that can do that? I
22:49
don't know. But I mean, I'm
22:50
sure a couple of dozen more now than there was because we're gonna be more and more requested for sure. In Am I correct in saying just for the listeners out there about grout that grout is porous tile as some porcelain tile is not porous? Correct? Correct. So water will penetrate through any grout line. So really, is it safe to say you could have a shower that had no tile in it? And it would still operate like a shower? Could you have like a potentially a dirty rock with Red Guard or whatever product you have? Yeah, and have no tile on it?
23:20
Absolutely. Yeah, you kill it. I mean, it's, you're, you're throwing warranties and everything else out the out the window, but it's they're designed to be waterproof before we put the tile on them all the prep work takes care of all the waterproofing. Right, so we use waterproof board, backer board. So our showers are now waterproof all the way up to the top. So 100% When you're using Dirac, the old systems, they weren't that way. That was a porous product. Yeah. Yeah, they're completely waterproof.
23:47
Interesting. So I mean, is it an oversimplification to say that tile is essentially decorative in that sense, in that scenario,
23:53
it is only the only thing I would add to that is that those substrates aren't meant to be worn. They're not they're not a rare surface just like underlayments they're not wear surface. So all these things are designed to not take into us right but but yeah, to simplify it. Yeah, I mean, they are, it is just stuck in where
24:13
I'm going with this as if you had a crack and a tile. You know, I live in a 1919 home and we remodeled it and I think the person before us had remodeled it and one of the tiles is cracked, but I know that I'm not really worried about a leak because even if water goes to that crack, I know that it's fine. Yeah,
24:27
the grill it's not going to you know we get a lot of calls where my girls crack well, your girl cracks. It's pretty common. You'll see it on backsplashes and stuff like that. We talk a lot of that now. So you're supposed to caulk any change a plane, but that even will crack because houses move I mean the wood studs, the framing, everything shrinks and expands and everything seasonally so you're gonna get some cracks. We get a lot of calls. My girl is cracked, worried about it leaking. telling you if that causes a leak in your shower, we got a big Browns whole thing's coming out
24:58
but you probably have to build the new house you want you Want to get one on one? Call Mark, he can go to your house. Tiles crack to the new house. No, you're right, though. I
25:05
mean, it's the waterproofing is all behind it. Right. Yeah, that's interesting. So,
25:08
you know, you and I go way back. Obviously you're from Chaska. I'm from Chaska. Yeah, go Hawks. I was 99 What year did you graduate in? 8797? Yeah. So
25:18
you graduated with my wife actually, yeah. And my brother I up so yeah, we're, we're very well connected. Yeah.
25:24
I mean, it's kind of funny, I would say just kind of just off the cuff. I'd say about 30% of the people that work in our company, not directly went to high school, but either went to I would say within a five to 10 mile radius of Chaska, will Konya cartilage and Delano Minnetrista. Yeah, it's amazing how many, it's all our trade partners are from that location. And I just found out this recently, I'm trying to get more involved with education, because one of my questions for you is, what do you see in the industry in terms of age? Like? It's a common question, you know, I've been reporting to you a couple of years older, but you know, we would probably be considered fairly young, in our industry, which, you know, we've been doing this for 18 years, or I have, and it's like, I don't feel that young compared, but you look around, and a lot of our peers are much older than us. And but I'm also a little nervous, because, you know, the people that we employ, like I had heard the other day that the average age of plumbers and mechanicals in Minnesota was like 58. And someone said that if the average age was below 35, you're in a declining industry, which means like, they're 20 years behind declining, we have a major, major labor problem coming up. And so I guess I'm curious, that's, I've heard that from plumbing. I've heard that into the certain industries that maybe attract younger people, for whatever reason, what do you see in the tile industry?
26:38
Well, before we get into that, I'll say we already have a major labor problem. Yes, I would say, but we're blessed. We've got quite a few younger folks on our team. So my age range for guys that I have is 21. To I'm trying to think l 56, something like that. So we've got quite a range, but the majority of our guys are probably upper 30s and 40s. So it's kind of, for us specifically, it's nice, but I mean, if you look at tile setters as a whole, if you're looking at the Union, and just other companies, competitors that are known and stuff like that, yeah. Yeah. I mean, 50s, I would say is probably average.
27:21
Yeah. Interesting. And I don't actually want to look into this. Did you ever have Mr. Jacobs for Ron? Ron Jacobs? Yeah, he was amazing. And I heard something recently, that I was shocking to me. Do you know that in high schools these days, they do not even have shop class anymore? What? Yes. So this person, you've heard of it? So my
27:39
brother was a shop teacher, Matt? Yeah. He was a shop teacher for two years. And then yeah, so I was working at Lyman lumber. Yeah. And I that's where we first started. Yeah, absolutely. So I actually, I got Matt to come over to Lyman. And he worked with us for a little while there. And then I ended up buying and buying into river cities. Yeah. But yeah, that's I can't believe they don't have shopping.
28:01
They don't have. That's like a state thing. And I think it might even be starting to be a country thing. But there's no Home Ec, there's no shop. And so one of the things that I'm partnering with another builder to try to promote education on this is, you know, these younger kids don't even know about that opportunity. Because it's a great field. It's really rewarding. I mean, it's very tough, for sure. But there's a lot of opportunity here. And especially with the age of that declining industry. I mean, H fac electricians. I mean, they're I think there's a lot, it's very lucrative. Yeah, you could do very well with a small company. And I wish we were doing more to push education, for people to realize this kind of opportunity, especially for people that want to if you had no exposure, you know, I mean, my dad happened to be a builder. And my mom's an engineer designer, I happen to, you know, I knew I did not want to build because they did they retired and evidently become a builder, after all, Basa can escape it. But my point is, it's, there's something very tangible and very rewarding, you build something or a part of the process, I'd really try whether it's our parade home, you know, you know, whether we do little community events with our trade partners, I love to get people out to the finished product, like you know, your guys, you know, they see the tile installed, and now a lot of tile guys are at the end. So they do get to see but like the framers, the framers rarely come back and see the house when it's done. And I feel like as an industry, we could do a better job of getting the people that are behind the scenes to do take pride. And I had I had this one framer that you stick pictures all the time, and he would share it, you know, I mean, he maybe had 10 friends on Facebook, it didn't matter. He was so proud of that house. And I love that sense of ownership. Yeah, and I would love for high school kids to have more exposure to that we're actually working with Minnetonka high school right now that's called this advantage plus, but it's more of the business side. So 10 kids every semester will come into our company and we give them a project if you're interested I'll hook you up with the program director. I was looking for local businesses and essentially they you task these kids you can have them do a you know research project. We had an interview all my past clients one time I had them research all the other competing builders and their websites to see rank who was the best. We were number two. So that was like, okay. You know, for 19 year olds evidently. Yeah. And so anyway, yeah, we need to do a better job of educating the next year, the next people that for as long as we're owning our career, we're going to need we need more body, we do
30:17
the Builders Association, which shouldn't call it the Builders Association, housing first, which is a very powerful association, very big Association, we've got a nice one here, that's who runs a Parade of Homes and everything. They've got a Workforce Development Committee, I used to be on that committee had had to exit that just for time. But it's things like that are real important. So there's a lot of outreach there, go, you know, go to schools and do presentations and stuff like that, but it gets harder and harder. And if there's not shop class, at the school, I'm not really sure how you even approach you know, high school kids,
30:54
one of the other builders that was pitching this to me wants to take it to Minnesota Housing First and try to get it make it a legislation deal. I mean, this is gonna have to go into education is a big deal. I didn't even know that they had taken it out. I was shocked.
31:06
That's absurd. It is. It's
31:07
terrible. Actually, not
31:09
everybody should go spend a fortunate at school, at least not right away, you know, go make a little bit of money. You might love one of these trades. I mean, electricians, tile setters, tile tiles, great because you get to, you know, you get to see you're working from stud, all the way to finished product in one specific area. And when it's done, I mean, it looks done, and it's beautiful.
31:30
It's very rewarding. You know, I say like framing, I was told, I always caution my homeowners, you know, and let's say a year, year and a half build, actually, the first three months looks like this thing might be done in about six months, because when lumbers flying is like, whoa. And one week, my entire second story went on another week the roof went on. I mean, they just they get so used to seeing dramatic changes, and then it stops for like five months. It looks like is anyone at my house,
31:54
wherever they've been pulling wires for three weeks? Yes. But to
31:57
your point tile, you know, for considering the duration on a large home that we're building, let's say it's five 6000 square feet, you know, tall guys might be in there for what, four weeks, five weeks, and that'll be you know, stud walls and sheetrock to finish in our showers. And it's dramatic. And it's yeah, it's like, okay, I can see my progress. Yeah, I feel like that's healthy for people who are working, when you can see progress. It's healthy
32:19
it is and the guys take pride in it. We're going I'm taking a couple of my guys to a to review a house that we completed that's done homeowners living there and said anybody wants to come look at it come look at Yeah, they're like, Heck yeah, I want to go take a look at that. Right. It's product, let's see it. So and we see it when it's done. But then you know, the plumbing fixtures and on the wall, you know, it's pretty cool to see it when
32:40
it's Yeah, I mean, let's furnish the most complete project. It's amazing. That's why I love like the Parade of Homes, I mean, we get a chance to showcase, you know, the work that we do jointly, you know, everyone gets to see it. And in Minnesota, for those that are listening outside the state, we have one of the I think the oldest tour in the country. And by far that was won a number of national awards. And I think this year's Tour has like four or 500 homes on tour, we happen to have the dream home and all the proceeds for that $5 admission go to Minnesota Housing, first charity to you know, help with nonprofit related building and wounded warrior projects. And it's a it's a great foundation, they do an amazing job of, of just promoting and, you know, the building industry, and it's trying to help bring in costs and awareness to the
33:20
impressive and we can I think we take it for granted a little bit. But if we've got a nice association here,
33:26
you know, I'm always obviously the name of the show is the curious builder. So I'm going to ask you some business questions. You know, Jared Davies, who own the company before you I don't know if you know this. So when I first started building in 2005, six and seven, I actually worked with the answers a little bit. So Steve yetzer, who owned you know, I think he sold it now, but I think it's still called the answers and we'll Konya he did all back then, you know, the interior design forces were not nearly as strong as what they were then. So when my dad was building a model home, you know, he'd buy carpet and tile from Steve. And then Steve, in order to get his business would say, well, here's a couple of couches, you know, to put in your model home. And so that was how that relationship started. And so I started using STEVE But Steve, that's how I first met reverse Jared and River City and then you came on and what year to work with River City. Yeah, so
34:10
2011 I came on and then 2012 You know, God kind of bought into the company. So yeah, we were doing work with yet, sirs before I was there. And then after for a while, too. They got away from builders. So we kind of you know, just dissolved that a little bit. But yeah, that was a that was an interesting time. So river city started in 2002. There was three owners at the time. Jared and then Jarrods dad, were two of the owners. And then another guy was with for a few years, he was kind of the tile expert and Jared was kind of the underlayment expert, but they both knew both sides of the business very well. So then, I don't know it was probably around 2005 Actually, right in there when it was just Jared and Greg, up until, like I said, The 2000 I think it was 2011. And then yeah, we kind of move forward from there. So I joined in I was working for a material supplier before that came aboard new a lot of builders like yourself and that from from my previous work and came aboard and then we kind of just organically grew it from
35:20
there. I actually never thought about that. I have to imagine that's been a huge advantage now that you own the business and bought it out working and calling on people that you essentially used to used to have relationships with. Is that true?
35:32
A lot of our customers I've been working with for 20 Plus, some of them I've worked with before when I was in high school framing and trim carpet. Framed, really Yeah. framed for a couple of years. Yeah, summers and stuff when I was in early high school.
35:49
And then did you work for Lyman right out of high school I
35:52
started started with Lyman in 2001. There was a there was a stretch I went to I went to college for a year. And like I was preaching a little bit ago wasn't for me. So I did some community college stuff but worked full time then. So then I was framing and trimming. So and actually one of our customers now is who I framed and trimmed for Zack done. Yeah. Guys like you and yeah, quite a few actually quite. I mean, I'd have to look. But it's, I would venture to guess that. I've worked with close to half of our customers for probably 20 years.
36:28
That's very cool. Considering that you've worked that you've owned the company now for what 1010? Yeah, I cannot believe it's been a decade. And I know, whoa, if you had asked me before, he just said that. I would have said like, I don't know, four or five
36:39
crazy. Wow. Yeah, yeah, it's been 10 years. Been 10 years.
36:44
That's amazing. It is from a business side, what have you learned? Now you're a business owner, you probably always had the mindset of one walk me through a little bit, you know, for those listening, and just I'm always interested in it. You know, there's always something in another person, even though we're in related fields. Yeah, any business, I don't care if you're selling shoes, backpacks, you know, flowers, there is some business commonality regardless of what you do. Tell me a little bit about and on your day to day operations. What are some business things that have worked for you, I mean, obviously, company is extremely successful, and continues to evolve as you're bringing out new product line and new offerings. I don't know, walk me through a few things that has really helped guide you to be a successful business owner.
37:21
Yeah, so I mean, some of the core basics of it that work for whether your business owner, a salesperson, or, or an installer out there is cut, you have to have customers that like you, and you gotta have employees that like you. And it's really, it's super important, like customer service is just a number one for us. Quality should go without saying good attitude should go without saying. But having said all that mistakes are gonna happen and how you address those things and handle them. That's where that's where you get those long term relationships. That's where you're working with guys for 20 years, because they know something's gonna happen. They've got a different tile contractor in there, something's gonna happen with those guys to how you handle that situation is how you're gonna.
38:06
It's funny, I had to work straight, you probably don't know, but to speak to your point, specifically to you. So there's been a couple times I'd say over the last 1718 years where we had, I don't whatever it was, Tyler came early, remember, but you know, we called you, you guys, Mark, I got it. We'll take care of it. We'll figure it out. And you do. And so to your point, it's like when you're in a stressful situation, and you know who you're not only your friends, but your teammates are? And you're like, oh, yeah, that's why I'm working with this company. I think people it's easy to keep working with people. When everything goes swimmingly. It's it's much more reaffirming when things go bad. Yeah. And, and you're like, you know, whether you're calling in a favor or not, or it's and it's part of it is how you asked to I mean, if someone asks in a very, you know, demanding way that usually, you know, but you ask for help. I mean, how often to someone asked for help? You know, that was something actually I got his career advice that ask for help. Yeah. And I have found it to be probably one of the most beneficial business things to do is simply just ask for help. Because at the end of the day, humans are humans, we're compassionate, I think as I mean, that's my belief. I'd like to believe people are compassionate human beings. And if you ask someone genuinely for help, they will help you. Yeah, doesn't mean they'll, you know, it's not free all the time. And it's not really the point. The point is, is people are have a large capacity to help others. And speaking of, you know, partners, you know, benefit benefiting you both ways, you know, we support you, you support us, it's definitely a team, right. You know, I have pictures in the front of our yard of people that have worked on our home. I want people in the come to the Parade of Homes to realize like, Yes, I may be the face of the company. But that's only because I happen to be there. You know, I can't do without the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that support me in the relationships we have to build these beautiful homes. Right. And so you want to celebrate the people that you know, essentially have built this beautiful home right? And we tried Another tile company about four years ago, and I think it was mainly at the behest of the client, we had a bid from you. And it was, it was the thing was, it was like 1000 or 2000. More on a big job was like a $32,000 job. So it was nothing, right. And we said, you know, we hadn't worked with anyone else other than River City and like decades, well, I'll tell you what you want them. You didn't like this price, you think, you know, is the common thing of like, why is the labor so high? Well, we just spent the last 40 minutes talking about why labor is so high, you know, it takes a week to do a single shower, right? So they're like, whatever. So we found this other company, and they did the work, and they were fine. There's nothing wrong with it. We had an issue about 30 days or 60 days after closing, it was like pulling teeth, and everything was defensive. It's not our fault, most minimum, and it was so and it wasn't I was never really going to go away from you guys, because we had such a great relationship. But like any business, you're still trying to understand like, is this the right fit? I think was, you know, you were probably four or five years into your ownership. And you know, you're trying to test the waters and see like, Okay, well, you know, how good is Mike turns out, he's pretty good. And this other guy made you look like a rockstar, because of how they handled this situation was a super benign situation, too. And they just simply just kept trying to pass the buck versus if it had been you. It was just like, Mark, we got this. And so I remember that very well, just because it spoke volumes of these long term relationships. I got asked today actually on a remodel meeting, they asked us, you know, when you go to bed, how many bids do you get, I said, I do get multiple bids from time to time, because it's important to make sure that we're competitive in our industry. But here's the deal, I want to look at my you know, we build four to five high end homes a year, I want to be able to look my clients in the eyes and say, Mike is doing my tile. You know, I've got rich doing my cabinetry. I mean, I need to know who I'm going to battle with. And I don't want to use something that's unproven in battle, it's unwise. Now, that doesn't mean I'm not open minded to other people. But once you have a relationship, I know what you expect from me, you know, what you expect from me, but it's also it's the inner communication between the subcontractors, and I don't know how to express this to a client in a very clear way. But the relationship that the subs have with each other, and respect each other's work, I think is one of the reasons why our homes when people will come through the say your homes feel different. And you know, it's not getting all touchy feely about the subject, but maybe I am, it's there is there's a lot of Sure, we'll go there. There's a lot of love that goes in that sense of like passion, hard work, effort, pride, all of these things, make a home really, really in it. But it's the relationships is the glue that binds all of that together. And so it's always important to be reminded of why those relationships are so important.
42:39
It is it's super important. And like you said, when you get, even when you get into a situation where something doesn't go, right, whether it's the who knows, I mean, it might not even be anybody's fault.
42:50
Those are actually the worst they are because you don't know what to fix. The worst is when you have something going wrong, and you can't identify what it is exactly.
42:58
But that's when you need the people because you you're going to have to have a plumber, a tile guy, maybe a trim carpenter, a glass guy, all diagnosing what happened, and we're going to meet out there and we're going to dig into it. And whatever it is, we're going to figure it all out and get it done. And if you don't have the all those teams working together and have an attitude of, listen, Mark's got an issue here, we're gonna get this taken care of, if you've got that you're, it's not that
43:25
big of a deal. And I think when it's all big picture, when you realize that like, you know, it doesn't, you don't always want it to be that way. But it is helpful when you know, like, Hey, I'm doing this for another 20 years, you're probably doing it for a long period of time. You know, you want to service your clients. And you know what, we have five other projects we're working on, I actually spend the question back where people ask, what are you using different people? I mean, we can, but one of the reasons why I know that if I have an issue over there, I've got Mike on five other projects, he's going to make sure I'm taken care of right. And like, you know, so people are looking for what they're really asking is, are you getting the lowest price, but you're not coming to me because I'm the lowest price. I'm fine if you come to me because I'm the best value. But let's talk about let's have a value statement. Let's talk about what we value. You know, do you value your shower and 10 years from now not leaking? Okay, well, let's let's let's have a conversation about that. Yeah,
44:13
yeah. So and it all ties in together and from design to you know, for us like design. That's a good point. Like, we've got to have the vision that the designer walked through with the homeowner it's got to come to fruition on the jobsite. So you can't have a new tile guy in there every time dealing with your designers and dealing with you and dealing with your jobs hoops. So if something's gonna get messed up
44:34
communication, it's an oversight thing. And we're certainly not perfect data. We have a long way to go. I feel like it's a never ending loop battle, but you know, good communication. And you know, you're a business owner, I'm a business owner, and we let me ask you this. How do you promote good communication to your people? Because not every one of your people should be business owners and the things that you and I prioritizing the things that you and I you try to teach that either by just example, or literally telling them that how have you promoted communication among your staff. So we
45:06
have a protocol that we try to keep in place. And it's about what the subject is. So if we've got a situation where something's going to change on a jobsite that needs to go to my project manager myself, what we do want to have is good communication on the jobsite with the other trades. So my tile setters, they all know, I want, I want you guys to have good communication with the other child with the other trades on site. So if we're working with an electrician on an in floor heat situation, have communication with them, and then make sure that our project managers and marks project managers know what's going on. Right. So there's got to be all that going on. But it's, I mean, the communication part of it. For us, it's, it's as simple as, follow these guidelines as best you can. But we're still dealing with humans here, right? Some guys just love to talk all day long. I've got a few of them, you know, I've got a few of them, right. So some guys are super quiet, and they just want to put their earbuds in and go to town. I kind of like a little bit of mix of both. Because I don't want guys just to be the cold guy on the jobsite. I want him to have conversations and have a relationship with other guests. We got to work with some guys on that. We got to work with some other guys just you know, dialing that back a little bit. So I can't talk all day long. But
46:23
the one guy, I always remember who it tends to be on the quieter side, it shares our same name as Mark David, but I don't know his last names. Yeah, that's funny. You know, it's sad. When I found out the other day his name was David. I was like, oh, man, your one last name away from being the builder on this. And he's like, he got really uncomfortable. Like, he doesn't want to be the builder. Yeah. But anyway, I would like to I would like to call Mark D. Now when I see him on the website. Yeah. So
46:43
it's so it's Mark Larson, but you can keep I didn't keep going with Mark. I like that. So he's a phenomenal tile setter. Yeah, he really is. But yeah,
46:51
I can tell he cares a lot about his craft, as you can just see it. But he's quieter. And to your point about a mix, right? He's always very engaging and very polite, and I love to engage with him. And, you know, it's always fun to compliment all your trade partners on the work. I think it goes a long way. I mean, needs to be sincere, obviously. But you know, they they're doing an amazing craft. Yeah. And tile is, you know, one of the last lines of defense in design, right. It's no different than paint and millwork and cabinetry. It is something that is very visual, you know, on our current parade home, people are commenting on the tile all the time. Yeah. And so, man, there's so many more questions to ask you have to bring on for another podcast, do
47:28
a reboot, reboot. But
47:29
why don't you for a couple of minutes here. What do you do outside of work? I know you're a big hunter and you'd like to, you know, wander the mountains. Tell me a little bit about that. I
47:38
enjoy wandering the mountains. Yeah, so I have been involved in outdoor activities for my whole life. My parents both got me into some of that stuff. I've kind of evolved my passion more out west recently. I still hunt around here quite a bit. I duck hunt day, pheasant hunt. I bow hunt around here, but I like to take usually a few trips a year out west. So could be Montana. It could be Colorado, Wyoming all over the place. We go to Arizona every year and do a bowl hunt down there for mule deer. So
48:08
that usually family friends just network of both
48:11
Yeah, yeah, just a network of folks. So I'm actually on the board of the Midwest Wild Sheep foundation as well. So some guys there that I'll probably start hunting with. So kind of broaden that a little bit as well. But yeah, I was on a week and a half stint here recently, Jason bighorn sheep out in Montana and climbing some of the roughest terrain in the lower 48 If not the roughest terrain in the lower 48. So that was fun. Didn't see any rams that were legal or anything like that, but had a great trip out there. So
48:42
yeah, now are you camping every night, wherever you're going? Are you returning to a base camp? Or how does that how does that multi day hunt go?
48:51
They vary, they vary so like this one in particular is a backpack on so you're gonna take I actually took eight days of food with me on this one. When this was actually solo hunt. I was gonna have somebody with me but they they drew a different tag and ended up having to bail on the trip. So ended up taking seven or eight days of food I can't remember and backpacking out so you're out there the whole time. I ended up leaving early on that one to go to a different side. Just because where I was was so clipped out and yeah, I mean, it's all rock and glacial and scary and everything like that. So I basically hunted out what I could hunt, had to back out and then go to a different area. So I ended up doing like three or two three day stints instead of the full thing. But great. I mean, it's the bare truth. moans. I don't know if you've been through there.
49:40
Yeah, we had a place in Montana for 20 years. Yeah, I've never been a lot of time down there. But enough to know that terrain. It's beautiful.
49:46
It's just gorgeous. Rugged, breathtaking. And it is something else. I'll have to show you some pitch. Oh,
49:51
you know, just because we're out of time. I guess two last questions. Is there anything in hunting or just kind of that I assume you recharging mentally in this space? Is there anything that you find mind that you're able to apply to business, I assume you get a lot of business ideas. I know whenever I'm running or exercising all these ideas, because you finally are decompressing. So it lets all these ideas free flow. How do you feel when you're out hunting? What is your mind space like?
50:13
So that's exactly what it's for. But part of what it's for it works incredibly well, you're the you're, you're totally right, you can kind of relieve yourself of the day to day stuff. And the big picture stuff starts coming out. So I have a notepad with me, and I've got my cell phone with me. So I take notes. I do some journaling when I'm out there, but some of it will be business related stuff. And, yeah, I mean, I'll come back and apply those things. So I'm actually working on a few things now for the last couple of weeks that I've ideas that I had thought of when I was up in the bear to it. So you got some time up there. Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's incredible for that it's really helpful. It's just managing to find the time when you get back to apply. That's
50:55
funny, you say that in a party note, I went to a conference in Nashville, and there's another one coming up here in a couple of months, I'm going to have 35 pages of notes. And I have had I've made, it's my fault, I have made zero time to actually execute those notes. Now, some of it are ideas that I'm sure have gone in, and I've used them but I need to go through and I've actually blocked time in my schedule. I call it think business. Because as a business owner, I don't spend enough time working on the business. You know, we're creating, I was just talking to an interior designer about this. How much time do you spend working on your business? And I know, as a business owner, that's something I need to do more of, but you tend to and I do like it, but you know, you're you're doing your day to day stuff you're used to and it's hard. Yeah.
51:35
So it's funny. Just this morning, I realized that I haven't blocked off enough time to work on this stuff. So Wednesday afternoon, I've got a three hour window where this is what I'm doing. And I'm gonna close my door and roll it on there. Close your door. Yeah, I'm gonna meeting request to myself. Yeah, so yeah, you gotta you have to schedule it all I've done
51:56
that as well. But oftentimes it becomes the one that gets you doesn't mean you're but I think I have mine reoccurring. I think I time block I think it's every other week Friday for like two hours. And just says think business. And then basically, it's a time slot that I keep protected. I won't put a client meeting in there. But you know, you've got kids, it's like, you know, something else comes up. And, you know, like, wow, or out of town client comes in, you're like, Well, I gotta have I have to take it. So anyway. Well, it's great to have you on. Where can our listeners find you guys?
52:24
So River City tile and stone is our website. So that's River City, tile and stone spelled out.com. River City underlayment.com. Our business line 612290 4100. Yeah, just reach out to us.
52:39
Okay. And as always in the in the notes. If you want to go back and listen to anything that Mike and I have been talking about. It'll be spelled out there by chapters. We'll also have all of Mike's handles, Instagram, website, everything will be on there as well. Thanks for listening to the curious builder and Mike, thanks for coming on. Thank you. All right, we'll see ya
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