Episode 44 -A Passion for Design and Service with Brian and Maud Duggan Discuss 47 Years of Union Place
Episode #44 | Maud & Brian Duggan | Home Systems & Interior Design
Brian and Maud Duggan discuss running their interior design and home systems business Union Place in Excelsior, Minnesota for over 47 years. They talk about how they work together as a married couple to run the business and maintain client relationships. They also describe how they have expanded their services and grown their team over the decades to continue serving their community.
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About Maud & Brian Duggan
Effectively uniting technology and design has been the keystone of Union Place | Home Systems + Interior Design for the past 23 years. Maud and Brian Duggan joined forces in 2000, more than two decades after Union Place was founded. Originally tucked away on Union Place, they have continued to grow and expand the operations in their George Street offices.In addition to traditional interior design fare such as window treatments, furniture and accessories, upholstery, wall coverings and professional installation, they now offer fully staffed home systems integration. Maud and Brian are a potent team when it comes to destination spaces such as a media room, home theater or creating any entertaining space. With the "techification" of many design elements from motorized window treatments, transforming televisions and invisible speakers, they provide an in-house support team for one another. They are experts at working with design forward technology and sell many technology solutions that are made to measure, invisible or hidden in nature. Maud and Brian also spread their expertise about. They work independently on projects both directly with clients and offer their services to the trade working extensively with builders and remodelers, other interior designers and architects.
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Mark Williams 2:07
Welcome to the curious builder Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host. I'm joined today by Brian Dugan and mod Dugan from Union place. Welcome, guys. Thanks for having us. Thank you. You're welcome. So this is kind of different. For those that are listening, you can watch us on YouTube, but we are actually recording in our arson home in Medina, I thought that it'd be kind of fun to do rather than a studio to do it in a place that you guys have actually worked on, mainly with the low voltage here. And so anyway, something a little bit different setting. So hopefully the audio is coming through nice and clear for everyone listening. And let's get started. Tell us a little bit about union place. I know you guys are based in Excelsior, but tell me a little tell the audience, what is it that you do? Great? Well, we own a small boutique business in downtown Excelsior. And we integrate both technology and interior design and projects we help people. We've been here in Excelsior for 47 years. 47 years, 37 years. Well, you look like you're 30. So I'm not sure how that works. But they didn't teach me math. So maybe my math is different. Well, that worked because my mother founded the business. Ah, yeah. There we go. In. Was it always one of the questions I had, because I love your marketing, it says systems, not low voltage. So often, you hear low voltage nada, which is fine. I just think home system sounds way more intimate, much more interesting to from a client's point of view, how did that naming come about? Was it always home systems or we've had acabo varieties, we was just union. Originally, when it started, it was union place, draperies and interior. But the original name came from the brief amount of time we were on a street, kind of a Back Street in Excelsior called union place. And, and was kind of ahead of the time, she wanted it to be not specific. So we've just kept the name. And we've been changing how we thought so we did union place for a while then we did. We tried to do home entertainment and design. But we really then finally found out on systems and interior design kind of captures the boat and the morals. And the HomeSafe says is great, because we've evolved over the years. You know, it's not just audio video, even if you'd look at a kind of a retail store that was an electronic store. They've adapted over the years because a lot of the technology, the footprint is just it's bigger. I mean, in this home, you know, we're covering anything from networking to security to central vac system, so it's not low voltage doesn't really speak to it. And even audio video doesn't really
Unknown Speaker 4:33
talk about what we're trying to do. We're trying to help focus less on the products but you know, what does the client want and items, those home systems.
Unknown Speaker 4:42
Maybe they're not audio video, maybe maybe it's like the central bank was very important here. I've showed so the home is on the artisan tour I have showed I'd probably demoed the vacuum in the powder room or pantry. Probably no less than 75 times pulling it down out of the attic. It's really cool I think was chameleon systems. Is that the name of it? Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 5:00
And it basically is housed in PVC pipe up in the attic, and you pull it out, and then you just have the attachment. So I think it's way cleaner than hauling that hose all around the house. So people have really liked it. Yeah, and then combining the two and probably get into it later like this is there's just been a lot of there's been a lot of traffic merging between design, and they'll end kind of systems. So a lot of it's more design minded. And that is kind of one of the
Unknown Speaker 5:27
reasons we kind of try to pair those together. We're not like trying to represent us or ourselves as separate businesses.
Unknown Speaker 5:35
But we do tend to focus on whether or not it's the design side to be tech savvy. And on the tech side, the the design savvy we try to I don't know if you agree with me there. But that's a big driving factor without the throughout the business. Lots of times people think that it's an odd combination, until they need us both. Yeah, I think it makes perfect sense. I love that about your relationship. Obviously, we'll dive into that a little bit later. Because I love the idea of having husband and wife business owners that just think that's fascinating how to communicate things like that. But let's go back to the beginning. You said your mom started the business did you grow up then working in the shop and kind of understanding it like walk us through like what you saw your mom do and how you became a business woman? Well, to begin with, I never was going to ever work where my mother, you know her business. That said, I did kind of grow up with our workroom. And so actually a lot of the women that worked with my mother taught me how to sew and make directories. And so I became sort of a It was sort of my summer job or part time job in high school. And it was an ok job. And I did learn how to sell and how to work with textiles. And then when I went to college, I was going to do something entirely different, until I started taking some small business classes. And I started taking some accounting classes and I started helping my mother with the bookkeeping of the business. And I realized there was a huge opportunity for her business to grow. And so I was probably my senior year where I started to change my tune. So I finished my degree and small business management. And actually then after that went to vo tech to learn upholstery. That's another big piece of what we do for people in their homes. And just kind of went from there and started working with clients. So that was, you know, 30 years ago, when you said you saw big opportunity. Can you expand on that? What do you mean by that? Well, my mother's approach at first was a little bit more of a lifestyle business. Frankly, she would tell me her number one goal was to send me to college. And that's what the business did. And once that was completed, I felt that the business could really expand. There's great opportunity for growth. We had a great product. We really had a amazing work room. And we just needed to expand it. Was it in your home at that time? Or did you Was there a separate office? This had never been in our home, we had that short term rental and Excelsior. And then she bought the building at 361. George Street six months later, where are you are now where we are now. And so we have never moved? Yeah, that's amazing. Every
Unknown Speaker 8:07
15 years or so we would put an addition on and now we're to the property line. So I think we've expanded as much if you're a Kowalski is in Excelsior stop by union place. And yeah, it does have definitely you can tell it's been added off the back especially and take a tour of it. I mean, it's pretty interesting on the inside, you know, all the different nuances of how you've added on is, you know, pretty clear on the inside, you've done a great job, obviously making it into your office where you can receive clients. But I think like all the original homes in Excelsior that are old and outdated, and they kind of have to grow, especially with your expanding workforce within Canada. So what where are your clients coming from? Are your mom's clients originally? Were they was that business to business? Or was it business to clients? It's kind of an interesting philosophy, we've always done both. We've worked with our own clients like I do every day. But because of our work room and wanting to buy more strategically for furniture lines, we have been able to help other independent designers in the area at the same time. So we facilitate and implement their projects as well as our own with our own work room and buying power. Can you explain that? So like let's say you're a designer? And you need what why would they come to you.
Unknown Speaker 9:15
We provide something, I think very unique in the Twin Cities, which is kind of a one stop shop for smaller interior designers. So if an designer is working in a home, and they need some new furniture, they want to re upholster a chair, they need shading, they need technology improvements, we can provide all of that as a one stop shop. So we go out to measure we're gonna measure windows, we're going to measure furniture, we're going to look at technology and we can provide it all into one package. When they call you. Let's say this is your clients not for designers. I assume if a designer specking you you might not interact with the client. Is that fair? You would usually depends it depends. Yeah. How so obviously, I'm guessing that Brian handles the home systems approach more
Unknown Speaker 10:00
I'll say and you handle the interiors, yep, there's a lot of overlap. Sometimes he's supporting me on a more design driven project. And other times I support him and more technology driven projects, when you first do that first call who at the same one or the other, and then you bring it into the team, or, because I assume you're dividing and conquering a little bit with all the leads, I'm guessing you're both not going to each meeting for that first point of contact or walk us through that, the only time we would ever go together is when we can tell from that initial phone conversation that we're both needed. And this is the scope of the project more into it. And that's fun, too. Yeah. And there's some times she could tell that there's going to be the technology element that maybe just is going to run in the background. So
Unknown Speaker 10:41
I will go out on those just to kind of be in the background. If time permits, and then flip, you know, if we flip it around, a lot of times, we need to get some design opinions from a tech, you know, from like, on a technology project, especially if it is,
Unknown Speaker 10:57
you know, there's it's kind of cyclical, but when we're engaging in rooms that are very tech savvy, like a media room, or a theater, a lot of times people have ideas of what they want. And we want to be able to handle that together at the same time, rather than, and it helps us it gives us a competitive advantage, rather than saying, we're going to do these things, and then you got to find somebody else to do this. It helps us be more turnkey helps us manage budgetary expectations, because, you know, we're we're kind of working on both sides. But typically, we, I'd say we initial calls, most of the time are going to be handled by one or the other. And then depending on if we need a lot of times model, bring her assistant out, if she knows there's going to be a lot of things to measure a lot of note taking a lot of intake.
Unknown Speaker 11:45
I you know, I do it a little differently. I mean, I tried to get big picture conversations with the clients, and I kind of formulated in my head, what we need to do, but a lot of times, yeah, we start separately, and then depending on the model collaboration needs to be done that's done at the office or in Philippines. Where are you most of your business contacts coming from other coming from I know, you guys have a collaboration with artful living, and you guys are very steady, you know, advertisers on that front. I mean, obviously, you got a beautiful website, and good social word where most of your leads coming from that is not already existing, let's say relationships are the key to that is longevity, we've been sticking to the same plan for 47 years, and we've had quality products, good relationships, within trustworthy
Unknown Speaker 12:36
and not fly by night. So because of that we get referrals from word of mouth. And I think I think we're also one of the since we've also been doing it a long time, we've also realized that
Unknown Speaker 12:50
when you're trying to have an initial call with a prospect, sometimes it takes a small project to win that trust over to build that relationship. Yeah. So you know, it's tough with you. It's tough to build a small house, and then we'll write this like during the boathouse, you're like, Okay, now, please do. Yeah, that makes sense. But our Mount Rushmore of customers, a lot of them have come from small initial project that they saw, they liked the relationship, they saw competency, they saw that we, you know, they we solved the problems, we did everything successfully. And that plants the seed for the next project for them, but also to refer their friends and family. And a lot, you know, a big of the with the longevity also comes those referrals.
Unknown Speaker 13:35
You don't so from a percentage, if you could roughly, what would you say is referrals or warm leads? Or repeat clients versus new clients?
Unknown Speaker 13:45
I would, I would say that 80% is a repeat client. Yeah, we're a referral because the way with mods success and helping the designers that yes, we have earlier this, she said be referred like that. And a lot of times when she meets a new designer, first she'll be you know, my goal is to make you successful, because you're going to be bringing me three big five, I'm not successful with, you know, a direct client, their friends will refer and the people see how beautiful the project is. But, you know, these designers are moving on to the next project. I mean, obviously, you have the most important things, obviously, which is, you know, good communication, which I think both of you are phenomenal communicators as far as reasons why, you know, personally, we're friends, but also because, you know, we see each other quite a bit. So I appreciate that. extremely personable, but I'd say a compliment of your staff, each one of your, you know, staff and everyone has their own quirky personality. I mean that in a good way. But you know, they're everyone has their own little personality. Right, but they're always so respectful. And just, anyway, I'm impressed at your entire team, which I would attribute to leadership. I mean, they're better. It seems like a lot of your employees have been with you for a long time. Yeah. Can you speak a little bit to how you retain talent and how that is, you know, helped you?
Unknown Speaker 14:54
Well, yeah, you're right. We have had some real fortunate relationships with our employees.
Unknown Speaker 15:00
Is my office manager attended our wedding? Oh, wow, it gives you some indication. To be clear, you've been married for a couple decades. You didn't just get married?
Unknown Speaker 15:11
Yeah, I think part of it is that
Unknown Speaker 15:14
we give them schedules that are easy for you to, you know, live with over a long period of time, we close for, you know, for the holidays, that first year, we closed over the Fourth of July, we're not open the day after Thanksgiving, you know, things like that make a difference, you know, year after year, you know, I think some families can handle that the first couple years of a career, but then they feel like that, that needs to pass. And we agree, we want time with our family as well. And when we work, we work hard and, and we try to have that time off. That gives you that balance. And I think to other elements on especially on the on the kind of the technicians that we have in the field for doing the home systems. Because we have that blend of business, consumer and business to business. They they get a mix of environments, like this house was built in really cold temperatures, rise is a really a challenging job site. And if they had to do that day in day out, I think you'd get a little bit more burnout. But on the flip side, you know, right now, they're also you can be working on a finished home, on Lake Minnetonka and have a beautiful environment to be working, you know, on on another day. And as you know, I mean, I think one of the reasons why I like Minnesota, I happen to like seasonal change. I don't think I could take any one weather system forever, actually, like the cold. I love the heat, actually. But the point is I like the variety. And you're right, I think when is January pulling wires and negative, well, you would pull on negative 20. You wouldn't work that day. But let's say it's because the wires are gonna break. I'm gonna show off. For those not Minnesota listening to this. Yeah, it doesn't get pretty cold here. By the way, you know, we have temporary heaters, things like that. But frankly, you know, working when there's humidity is at 90%. And it's 90 degrees out. It's no joke either. So yeah, it's kind of Murphy's Law. It's like, if it's negative 20, they can allow you to work outside, if it's yeah, 100, they wind you in the attic.
Unknown Speaker 17:03
It's just you never get but yeah, so we have that. And then the second thing I think is important is that a lot of people think if you give people leeway in terms of making
Unknown Speaker 17:13
decisions or being flexible in certain things, that they're going to take advantage of that. But it works both ways, because you trust them to do those things. You also, they also want to take that responsibility when there is challenges. So when clients are pestering them on late on a Friday or even on a weekend, they know that that flexibility, guys to go both ways, they can't just have a one way street of only take. And that's been a big thing is that we're really able to accommodate a lot of these than, you know, the needs for you know, we have one of our employees is gonna have his first child here in a couple of weeks. And so we've been able that, you know, he's got these little meetings that he can, you know, get gotta get to us. So we're not, you know, we're like, Well, sure. How do we work this in? How do we work this? How do we work this out? That's what we do. So I think give empowering them and engaging them to kind of make decisions and decide how to best apple projects. But giving that flexibility? I think it works both ways. Do they comment on it? What is it like? Do they actually actively say that to you? Or how often do you do like your review? Do you do yearly review? Or Quarterly Review? How often do you sit down one on one? And is it both of you sitting down with the set employee? Or is it if it's in the home systems? Brian's How do you handle your basically reviews with your people? For the most part, we do kind of divide our employees between our two kind of product lines.
Unknown Speaker 18:34
And yeah, it's usually one to one by the every year unless we do have somebody new, our newest employee at this point, I think is four years out now. So
Unknown Speaker 18:45
yeah, it's just more of that conversation. I also think, especially when you're trying to look for somebody new, is you want somebody that really likes to do what they're doing their passion, everybody needs to be happy with this decision. We want them to have a job that they want, and then that and that will be a good fit. But when we have it we've actually one of the challenges with the home systems is, is that it's not the people that we're hiring are not necessarily there's not a lot of transfer in and out of state is people that are kind of just circling within the community fear, yes. So either have to grab someone and keep them. You need to know why they're about if they're bouncing around why they're bouncing around. Or you look outside the traditional piece, you know, people a couple of technicians we've had, if we can get what you've talked about being personable, being able to have good real relationships and conversations with our clients. We can train them in on on on the systems or the technical side, right. It's more of the interpersonal communication that is maybe harder to teach paddling. Yep. So that's one thing we've learned is that we had, you know, we had some, some of our early employees that were on the home system side. Were you know, they were, you know, a little rougher around the edges you know that what you more think of
Unknown Speaker 20:00
As a tradesman take pee, I heard a story about a builder in Florida maybe was a plumber. And they went to, they went to the food business. And they found a bunch of people that were hostesses and managers of restaurants and basically hospitality and they trained them to do plumbing essentially. And you know, their business just skyrocketed because their communication and how they, how they met clients expectations was so important that the rest of it they could teach, I just thought that was like, wow, that's a pretty it's a pretty bold move, but and it paid dividends and it sounded like it was a really successful story. This episode is brought to you by adaptive the software for builders that automates drawers, budgets and bookkeeping, with AI. For over a year. Now, I've been partnered with adaptive, and they've just been an amazing game changer in terms of efficiency, in our time, in all our bookkeeping, when from the time we get an invoice, we import it into their system, the AI codes, it cost codes, it job codes it, all we have to do is review it, pass it through the people internally in the office all digitally, and then it gets approved and paid all by Ach, it's becoming extremely fast and saving us countless hours a day and a week when it comes to drawers, all of our budgets now are set in adaptive as well. So now when we cost code against the drawers, we can do our change orders. And then with a click of a button, we can submit these drawers to our title companies or to our homeowners for faster payment. If you're looking to save time. If you're looking to be accurate, I highly recommend adaptive Additionally, if you'd like to listen to one of their founders share the story of adaptive you can listen to episode number 15 on the curious builder podcast. This episode is brought to you by peloton Northland for 19 half years I've been building homes and 95% of all my homes have used Pella windows. I couldn't be happier to call them a partner in our builds and our remodels. Whether you're an architect, a designer or a remodeler, I'd highly recommend Pella windows that can fit old homes, new homes, reclaimed commercial and really everything in between. Pella is a company that we trust and that we recommend to our clients. Additionally, in management, Peter and N have just been absolute fantastic people to work with as well as mentors to me personally. So when it comes time to look for a window, I'd highly recommend Pella windows. Find more at Pella northland.com. Also, if you're interested, you can hear episode one where I interviewed Peter and Ed together for a great listen on business and Pella windows. So although speaking of that, going back real quick, so because obviously you guys haven't been married since you're five years old. What are if you did, I didn't realize arranged marriages were still a thing. What? When you took I mean, walk us through a little bit of that transition period back to your mom. So you come on to college, you see an opportunity, you start working with your mom walk us through, like when Brian came on the scene. When did home systems sort of evolve? Take us through that process. That's very interesting. Yeah, we both graduated from college in the same year. Did you know each other at the time or? Oh, yeah. Oh, we were dating and we were in college. Okay. All right long distance. Okay. I was in St. Paul. And he was in Chicago.
Unknown Speaker 23:00
So I was working with my mother. And Brian was, at that point, working in a big box audio store. And then that was working out fine. We got married. And then we started realizing that I was busy with his clients. And he started being busy with my client. Oh, wow. And so that was sort of fun. So we got to have some shared projects, even though we were in different companies. And then we had our first child. And I think it was Christmas Eve. Finn was born on the 15th of December. So it's the 24th pretty new baby. And I was waiting outside of the big box audio store with the baby in the car. We were late. And Brian was two hours late on Christmas Eve because when you're managing a big box it was storing Christmas Eve you don't so there's a client in the store. And that was the moment I decided that would never happen again. And it didn't ever happen again. And I got sucked in because the school i mod we're talking about marriage or business
Unknown Speaker 24:05
no answer Euro happily married man. Yeah, no. I had no i, i We actually traveled a lot in the summer. And so in my mind is I built up this idea that I couldn't get a job right about a school because we're going to travel and do this right which is
Unknown Speaker 24:23
telling myself when I wanted to here but then I did get I did get a job which I was like be a temporary job need something to do this mod was working and she was looking at me like Yeah, can you get job you know? So she was very helpful in placing me in that job like this. But it was it was a good job. I was successful. I enjoyed what I was doing. I enjoyed you know, the products that we were selling this but the at the just the scheduling worked okay for to kind of single people or engaged people or are they married but as we're moving towards the family life that was not sustainable. So that's when we kind of made a decision to
Unknown Speaker 25:00
Whoo, I needed to do something different. And it wasn't obvious that it was going to be like both, like just come work at Union place. It was I went out and explored some other opportunities. And it was with people that are good be in our industry today or competitors or,
Unknown Speaker 25:16
and looked at that, but then my dad was right. He's like, Brian,
Unknown Speaker 25:21
you like she said before we're working with St. Clients. Union place has we have?
Unknown Speaker 25:29
Office, we have the overhead clarity of everything here. We can just start selling other things, too. And she was totally right on. So that was 20, almost 23 years ago. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 25:40
Wow. So 2000? Roughly? Yep, yep. Yep. Sorry, our son was born in 2000. So like, we kind of did a soft transition, because I had paternity time and things like that I could do. So I got it gave me a little bit of a nice ability to kind of find what we were trying to do. Did you add when you're managing your box? Right, so then did you use a lot of your existing relationships? Or did you have before too much new ones? Because you were maybe carrying lines? And obviously, 23 years ago? A lot of changes, but at that time, you know, how did how are you able to use it? You had the technical knowledge? I would assume already, but how do your relationships with brands work? Could they make the transition to you being a private dealer? Yeah, so that was the big, that was the biggest thing? Because I'm like, how do we figure this out? And so at that time, I, I asked, I started exploring my kind of friends and network and like, well, you know, I could do some things that were they would help us out, or maybe help me facilitate a sale. But I quickly learned, kind of know, like, how do you establish relationships with the vendors? How do you become a dealer for for this? What products do you buy direct? Where is their distribution that you need to do? So we quickly did this. I mean, I didn't, I was brand new, so I didn't have any in house staff. So we started, I found somebody who could we could subcontract to do the things that we need to do, I would go out and, you know, it needed to be the client needed to be educated or trained or troubleshoot, you know, I would go out and do that. And I'm excellent at some of those things. But as far as like the handing, like the thing video as far as pulling wires, and you don't want me do that, right. So it started slow like that we have I want people to the office, I say this is where my mom and I used to be, and we're literally in this closet together. And then we had a we had a little
Unknown Speaker 27:23
closet half the size of the one behind us here, that was our warehouse like that, right. And now we have
Unknown Speaker 27:30
a much bigger space like this and a second and a secondary warehouse because we've grown it and we brought everybody in house as far as what we do right now. So it was just kind of a feeling out. And I did talk to a lot of people because as those big box stores closed, they everybody scattered to different things like that. So I was able to find people that I worked with, that I I still work with today that are either reps or they work in as an executive that vendor like that. So it did help me establish those base relationships on on the
Unknown Speaker 28:03
kind of the business side on the client side. It you know, on those stores, its proximity, so people are just coming in close. But there is there is a couple of those clients that I mentioned before they're like been rock star clients throughout the career. They were people that I originally worked with there that just kind of have hung out on the stage with you your life and they've made you know, we've we've done going from helping them with a cell phone maybe the question to building their first house to their dream house. And we came along for the ride with them. So that's been fun. When you first started, I assume it was probably pretty heavy on the interiors because you were more established for union place anyway. And so you're probably what 70% 20% split on the revenue or what would what would you say early on where I'm going with this question is like today, where would you find your total revenue in terms of holding systems versus interiors?
Unknown Speaker 28:55
It's surprising to me how often it is 5050 But then there's a whole lot of crossover that's happening right now where even we're having a hard time deciding how to categorize certain sales.
Unknown Speaker 29:06
Putting motors in draperies and window treatments is happening every day. Right and we've never done more of those and I'm and we're having a lot of fun with that. But then when I buying motors from Lutron or Somfy is that an AV sale or is it you know, so there's a luscious blend? Yeah, yeah, I think that's awesome synergy between the two of you. I don't actually I mean, I've worked with a lot of interior designers. I've worked with a handful of you know audio low voltage and and no other home systems other than Herbalife well, and when do we start I love I don't even know what it is. I love that I feel like that's a huge competitive advantage for you correct but also when we did start mod was not like oh, you're just gonna go do your own thing. It's like no, you have to learn and you gotta get out and help me because she's you could you could both be essentially sales people for the other person's fit your joint business but if you had me out
Unknown Speaker 30:00
out selling blinds and I people ask like who is the designer and some of these things in it. You know, there's a lot of times it's these it's just a lot of teamwork. But if we have some theater products that you see on our on our home theater, I'll step up and say no, I envisioned that I distracted designed it. But she had me out doing blind like cute little cafe curtains and stuff like that she's heard Brian it until you can sustain yourself totally on audio, video comm systems now. gotta sell the existing stuff we have. So I was out doing living a little while How do you This is love to ask the so husband, wife owners? How do you handle conflict resolution in the business? I'll transfer later in person.
Unknown Speaker 30:43
Because I need some marriage advice. But you know, how does that work? I mean, let's say you have something like how are you guys able to manage because like any business is stressful. And it's always constantly up and down. You know, whether it's the economics, cashflow, hiring, and firing all these things, how have you guys able to navigate this for you know, 20 years now? 23 years, right? Um, we talk about business all the time, it this is a lifestyle job, this is something we chose to do because we want to, it's not because we needed to, and you enjoy it clearly really enjoy it. Because of that, you know, we don't try to differentiate at five o'clock. We don't talk about work, right? That just doesn't happen. We talked about work called
Unknown Speaker 31:22
Love to why wouldn't we? So what we do, it's what we're doing together. So when there's issues, you know, sometimes when there's problems that that arise, you know, Brian's good at certain things, I'm good at things we do try to let that the person that's best and analyze. There's a reason I pay the bills and our and our home. Yep. Because I'm better at it.
Unknown Speaker 31:45
So when something's big, you know, it's a lot of dialogue, and we work together. But we do we've just kind of naturally, I don't think we might set out to like, predefined, like, you know,
Unknown Speaker 31:57
certain roles, but like sometimes when it comes to like some marketing things, I'll be like, Oh, my God, Haley, she's like, go to business. Yes. Do you do it? And same, you know, same thing. She'll when comes to sit financials, she'll say, I was like, go away. I'm too busy. But she doesn't. She's like, Brian, wait, why are you now? Yeah, if you're too busy, I need to be involved if something's wrong. The card reading that conversation with the car the way over? Yeah. So I think sometimes she'd like to fire me from who asked that aspect. And it in my family family business was the norm. Yeah. So Thanksgiving was always talking about the business at hand. Not just my mom's business. But you know, different people in our family have always run building companies. The channels and dinner theater was our family business. I don't know about Yeah. And so working with my mom felt very normal and working with my husband also felt really normal. Ryan's family couldn't quite figure that out for a while they thought he was had lost his mind. I get I get, I get the cred. And then I get it trumpet because they say I work with my wife helped him next. They just like you're asked him. How do you do all that time? I'm like, I can do
Unknown Speaker 33:06
explain all the reasons why I love it. And then I say, and it worked with my mother in law for years and years. Wow.
Unknown Speaker 33:13
Right. I'm like, it's I don't know. I think we all for the you know, there's there's stressful moments where he can't we've had to kind of just have more serious conversations and things like this. But luckily, we've been able to shine where you know, where we're losing things. We're good at like that. So we've kind of naturally fallen into the roles. And how have you managed that with your kids? Obviously, now, one is in Spain studying and the other one finished now? He's graduated? No, not yet. He's still in Victoria. He's still good. So he's got another year left. Maybe a little more. Six year program? Yeah, sure. He's your buddy. Okay. College, though. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. High School. I guess my question on this is how have the kids expressed interest in the family business? And how have you as you've raised children, I mean, I have small children that are seven, five and three, you guys on the other end. But in frankly, I hope I'm not still building when they're there. But I was older when I had kids than you were. Have they expressed interest in the company? How you brought them in a little bit like you worked with your mom, walk me through a little bit the dynamic because I also grew up watching my mom, dad, an interior designer and a builder and I feel like I gained a lot but like you I also do this, not what I wanted to do. And while you know, yeah, the kids have had an opportunity to work for us. And they both have great skills, Lucia studying fashion and marketing communication. And so all of those Instagram posts are coming in handy for her right now. So she's done a lot of social media for me and helped out in some ways in that regard. And then Finn also, especially in high school, he actually worked for us for quite a while. He's got a real knack for technology, like his dad. Yeah. But I want to say that the chances that either would want to take this on
Unknown Speaker 35:00
I think our fell slump. Okay. And are you excited about that disappointed about that or just is what it is?
Unknown Speaker 35:07
I'm excited that they had that opportunity. I think the family business has a great, it's a great resource, and an opportunity for kids to understand what you're doing understand how to work for a company, see what the effort is that goes into some of what happens. And I think they get to learn a little bit. It was funny, you know, I think Finn probably watched his mom and dad take one too many phone calls at the dinner table, or when we're driving somewhere, as a family, we just drew. And he told me when he went to college, they wanted to be sure that he had a job that didn't involve customers.
Unknown Speaker 35:43
And I thought about that for a minute. And I didn't even know that was a possibility. I mean, my whole everything's about the customer. He's interested in it and working for a company and internal IT department. And so he's trying to figure out how not to have those kinds of phone calls, right, the dial and we do that it is interesting, because I as early you know, this is before cell phones, but I remember my dad getting every time would rain really hard, you get a call from the prefer or the plumber or the middle of night. And I remember thinking, you know, it's probably 1012 I don't know, the agent would be like, why would anyone be in a profession where people call you at 2am in the morning, now you can just turn off your phone, so it's not gonna get you till the following morning. Anyway, the point of it was, it's like, why would I ever want to be in that kind of a business, they actually retired before ever started. I think I started my company about four or five years after they retired. And I think it was I apprec I learned a ton more than I realized I had learned just observing it all. But I think it for me, I needed it to be kind of my own thing, kind of the classic, you know, type A and some of those stereotypes, I'm sure. But I you know, communicate with them all the time. In fact, my mom still helps out on some of our artisan home tours. Right now she's great at sales and in Huddersfield, shows Andrea, I haven't I have people that will come to see my mom, which is hilarious. Now was 73. And you know, people are like, Oh, I remember receipt and talking to your mom at your artisan home 10 years ago. And so anyway, it's I think it also speaks a little bit like you kind of lived the lifestyle. It's not like you have two different personalities or two different lifestyles, there's no hypocrisy in the sense that like you have a business life and a personal life to sort of end up being the same thing. And I think with social media, I think it kind of has to be because I don't know how you could be one thing and then at home be something different, because especially in today's world, everything is available kind of up for consumption by everybody, if you're going to be forward with your life, if if you are the brand of your company, which I've sort of not purposely done, but now kind of I am purposely doing it kind of like it is what it is. I assume you guys are fine with that as well, that somebody didn't sign up for that. Right. And a lot of people I mean, we, when they asked us kind of about how we envision what our business is, I kind of liken it more to like a practice, like a dental practice, because it is more about the relationships, and and about the two of us. But when we're when we're meeting with new clients, you hate to say, one of the requirements for the clients is we gotta be like, friendly together, stuff like this. But it is tough, because we come in to some people, some of these initial clients where you're like, they, they're just, they're, they're tough to work on. They're like, it's an it seems like we're not on the same team. And that's the biggest challenge that we have, if we're coming at it, where we they think it's an adversarial process, it's hard. It's just, we spoke about this, like, neither one of us are low cost providers, you know, we're not the highest cost, we're not the lowest costs, I feel like for myself, I would imagine you'd say the same, like, I feel like worth maybe the best value. And but a big part of it is our relationship building in the process. And if it's going to be transactional, personally, I'm not really interested. I like relationships, is that kind of what you're speaking to? Yeah, like I said, we'll get you know, you know, we'll get, there's lots of different personalities out there. And we cover a lot of ground in terms of the situations where we get into. So
Unknown Speaker 39:00
you know, it, it's not a requirement, but I just feel like if the client thinks, A, that we're looking out for their best interest, and we're really trying to get achieve their goals, and b you know, that they're
Unknown Speaker 39:15
friendly, back and forth. And you don't have to go get milkshakes after but we could, you know, at least be you know, we don't want to start from the and some of them are clients that come in and they've been frustrated with another vendor or something like that. So I think they need to blow it sometimes they just need to get a little steam released, you know, a beautiful steam. But yeah, as long as you know, we're all working together and in a kind of a friendly, professional manner. That that's great. And when it goes when that detours when it goes off and sometimes you don't see that till multiple meetings, but now we want to work on we want to be a fun environment. What are some touchstones that you use to keep that relationship? I mean, obviously building a home as I'm guessing longer but you're
Unknown Speaker 40:00
Part of that. So it's long for you to I mean, to build a home in today's world, you know, the home that we're at right now is about 4000 square feet, you know, very nice probably took us 1011 months to finish, but some of our projects take a year and a half. And I know furniture, I think you had a huge boon in business. I think you'd mentioned this as being a Custom Shop during COVID. When you had all these main lines being backed up a year, did you see a big explosion? I guess? I'll go back to that question a minute. But you saw a big boon because you could actually produce things in your house is correct. Yeah, we do produce custom furniture, which was a great advantage during that time. But there was a boom, that happened at the beginning of COVID. But it hasn't stopped. Yeah, it is today, as well. So we're just trying to cope with that influx of
Unknown Speaker 40:44
new clients and high demand.
Unknown Speaker 40:48
And the first part of that question, right, derailed myself was, what do you do to maintain the relationship with the client, so you know, whether it might be a dinner once every six months, we actually, I heard another builder do that. And I was like, That's a great idea. So once every six months, I'll get the immediate team together, and we'll go out for a meal. Just to remind you know, it's a long process, right? And so, it's important to remember that, hey, we're all families, we'll have people in just again, to re kind of gather the wagons, if you will, and just say, hey, let's have a nice moment. Just have a nice meal together, just talk about life. Maybe it doesn't have to be about the building. Do you do things like that? And even after the job is done, you know, what do you do for like thank yous? And how do you let the client know that you appreciate them? It's tricky. I think I some days, I wish I were in your shoes where you would be working on one project for a year. We have 75 sales a month.
Unknown Speaker 41:41
Okay, that's a total it's a different shoe. Right. So we're, you know, at the end of some, you know, mid scale scale projects for bringing a bouquet of flowers at the end.
Unknown Speaker 41:54
Annually, we definitely recognize
Unknown Speaker 41:57
our clientele. We always send out box of truffle Hill chocolates. Yep. So things like that. But I also I feel like the way that I tried to give back and thank our community for supporting us for so long is the work that we do with the chamber and Rotary. That's a big piece of RSA. Thank you. And we put a lot of effort into it. Can you explain that a little bit more? I know, you we talked loosely before that you're involved with the rotary? How is that in an effort to I guess, I'll reach to your clients. How does that work together, we do a great program where if true rotary we support loving, and loving is an organization here in western suburbs. Battery love in love eighth. And they support numbers of different projects in our community that it rotary supports, but also union play supports. So we support one of their outreaches, which is called furnish share. And they try to help people in housing insecurity with furnishing their home. So we have no relationship with them, we help with their rent. And then also we have a relationship with our clients and where if we were to sell you a new sofa, we will for free for free. Take your old self and donate to that organization. Oh, that's beautiful. I like Yeah. And we do the same. A lot of people ask us where because we are doing, you know, a job like this. Everything's coming in, for the most part. But a lot of our
Unknown Speaker 43:19
lot of our jobs were taking, we take out so many things like this. And so the same thing is I just tried to make the clients like feel like
Unknown Speaker 43:29
that what is going to happen with that equipment is kind of in line with what they want. So we usually start with, we can UPS UPS up, cycle it, and just donate it to somebody or give it to somebody in need. We'll start with that. And then if we can't do that there's
Unknown Speaker 43:45
free geek and other organization that is training if you've already Keek free geek yet, so and they actually have this similar philosophy to furnish sharing that they have a little thrift store where they sell some stuff to make money. But they're training these kids on how to recycle how to fix things like this, you know that it's going to a good cause, then we'll recycle it. And if it can't be recycled, then it would it might end up in a trash. So we're just trying to tell people that we're not, you know, we were we're thinking about holistically the whole I love that I think people often ask us, I mean, we do a lot of demos and remodels. And, you know, it is tricky because timing and pricing comes into some of the stuff where it's especially timing, where you're like, well, they want to get going and there's a company we're gonna bring him on the podcast at some point called Better Futures. They employ ex felons or convicts and they give them their first job back and demolition of a home let's say you're gonna tear down a house rather just tearing it down, they'll essentially decommission the house, we'll take it apart piece by piece and they must have a network that they you know, get rid of all their stuff too, which is great, right? Usually we say ask your friends and family, you know, maybe put on market you know, Facebook marketplace. You know, we'll obviously do an internal email, you know, our framers for a long time. I think every deer stand in North
Unknown Speaker 45:00
In northern Minnesota as a fridge from MPW because for a long time we were handing out fridges, like, you know, there are cupcakes at a kid's party just because but now they all are bloated. Like we can't handle any more refrigerators and things like that. So I'll have to look into these because these would be, I think, a really powerful, I think, especially clients feel very conflicted when we do a big remodel, or a teardown. And there's this conflict of the new space. And what do we do with all this stuff. And sometimes it's economically unfeasible and I see why stuff gets trashed. I mean, I can tear down an entire house in one day, where, you know, kind of decluttering so one has to pay for that someone has to take that you know, that the people power to pull it all out. And there are some companies that, you know, once you get to the curb, they'll come and pick it up, or if you deliver it to them, of course, but again, someone has to take it out of that house and put it there deliver it. I mean, there's just there ends up being more logistics than just, Oh, give it away. cracked? Yeah, it's hard to give things away. It is. Yeah. But going back to your thank you. I mean, like we try to make people feel like they're enjoying the process and not being vain throughout like this. But we try to, I mean, we, you know, if I, if it's a handwritten note here, they're like us, I mean, I wish we had more time, and we are better at thanking people like that. So I, I try to
Unknown Speaker 46:12
hope that people feel that we are thankful for their business, we're trying to, you know, I think speaking as someone that has a business relationship with you, as well as a personal relationship, I would say that you both have a high
Unknown Speaker 46:26
generosity of spirit. I don't know how to describe it in words, but like, I feel like when you interact with both of you, and I interact, obviously more with Brian because we play tennis together. Although you do come to your sauna, which I do appreciate. But you know, you feel you can feel when someone cares about you, you can feel when somebody is giving you their time. So sometimes I don't think it has to be grand gestures, it could be something simple, like just stopping over being like, you know, lately, you know, as I've walked into qual skis, I've just been texting him like, literally 30 seconds from his door. Brian, you want to have lunch? So I think I mean, I think that kind of a relationship with your clients too. Or it's just like, hey, I'm, I'm close to your house, can I stop and get you a cup of coffee? Or whatever it might be? Yeah, I feel like you guys exude that. That's one of the reasons why I really enjoy working with you. And I suspect, as in this case, I am one of your clients. I suspect that's also what they would feel as well. Right. Well, I think like it, when we're, we do have taken a lot of conversations. I mean, Excelsior has got a vibrant community, you know, a lot of people that around there, but, you know, I think we do just being friendly and dropping in and not having to be like, and not having our clients feel like we're only in it for the monetary sailors in them something like that, that, that, you know, we do care when they have big life experiences big changes like this. It's you know, I we've been to many clients, unfortunately, that, you know, celebrations and their, you know, funerals this that so it's you know, it's
Unknown Speaker 48:00
it's personality based, for sure. Is it fair to say? I mean, it feels like you guys are tremendous networkers you know, I feel like you also both personally like to, you know, want to say go out, let you know, you're attending concerts, you're obviously you bet your rotary commitments. I see you around town all the time. I feel like I don't, this is actually a question to like, how often do you schedule, let's say, like, a date night? Or how do you break up your week as your kids get older, so that you guys also get, you know, just personal time you guys went together a lot, you know, so? So maybe, maybe, maybe you schedule a wait time? I'm not quite sure. Walk us through that? Because I feel like
Unknown Speaker 48:35
everybody knows you. And you know, so many people. Is that deliberate? Or is that just a natural extension of your personality and being active in the community for so long?
Unknown Speaker 48:44
I guess I would say both. It is deliberate. We have made a new kind of policy that we say yes. Especially since COVID. Don't say no, we don't say no, unless we really can't write. So yes, we do attend we go people ask us to volunteer. People ask us to take part of an event.
Unknown Speaker 49:03
People invite us to see a project in Hastings we drive right out
Unknown Speaker 49:08
that's what we are here to do. You invited us to do this today for coming in that the accurate data this by the time this airs will have already had our first live event but I know Brian's coming and dinner and yeah, I mean, I think I feel to have that are one of the things why I feel Minnesota is special. I think I'm guarantee there's other places in the country that are like this too. But I really liked the community that we have right now in building and design. I feel like it's very much especially I feel like we hear a lot about social media and the negativity surrounded around it. But feel like the positivity side of it is man has that brought people together in terms of collaboration, when it's healthy, not like Oh, you forgot to take me any of that stuff, which does happen and it's just usually it's not malicious. It's just not thinking. But I love the fact that we know more about each other's business based on the photos that we're seeing the videos, and now there's this that I feel like there's
Unknown Speaker 50:00
A lot of energy right now in Minneapolis specifically, do you feel that way? Yeah, social media has been great for not just me learning about other people, but sharing what we're doing. It really puts it out there showing those specific projects, things that you're proud of seeing, you know, exciting new ideas and other homes. thing. Great. And it's great. I mean, we're working with and you know, we have some people that we obviously work with to help. But it's It's rewarding to see like as you start generating this digital assets, as you are calling radio, as your content. So it's very formal, right? Where here's the digital assets from the battery does add, I mean, no, but it's rewarding just to see like, it just an honest review. Like, this is great stuff, like you guys are doing good work. So it is nice to be validated as well.
Unknown Speaker 50:48
And when you're putting those things out there, so how, if someone was to start a interior design business and or a home systems business, what advice would you have for them, differentiate yourself,
Unknown Speaker 51:03
come up with a talent that people need. For us, it's our hands on workshop, we create and make things ourselves. Yes, we buy things from manufacturers as well. But I think that's something that is helped us when the market wasn't as hot as it is right now. Something that's kept us in the mix throughout those years. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 51:27
I think you need on the technology side, some of these guys, I mean, I look at all these forums that are out there that another thing that technology has helped is it now, everything's on a forum as far as learning about new things, or troubleshooting things like that. But the one thing I would say is, you can't be all in just in the technology, you can't say I'm the smartest guy and I just know all the technology, you need to bridge that gap to your client, because you need to be able to tell the client why you know why they want this and clients don't want, you know, they don't want
Unknown Speaker 52:02
that someone may want the biggest TV, but it's it's the concerts, the movies, the music, it's the end result, we get into this going back with, with window treatments and stuff we get in sometimes we get into these issues where like,
Unknown Speaker 52:16
I'm gonna sound the motors, well cleanse a lot of motors they want, they want the privacy, or they want the the end results, which is why I like the name home systems, right, you're going big picture trying to find out what I say oftentimes in building, especially early on, like, Yes, I'm building your home, but really, I'm trying to understand your lifestyle. Now, I also want to understand the lifestyle that you want. And then my job, I feel like as a, you know, essentially the general or the team leaders to like, I want to bring in all these people that have the specific skills, like what you're talking about to give you the lifestyle that you want. So I think a similar different word, but similar. It's like the, it's the, this, the big speaker system that they put in. And it's because they want to be able to enjoy it when they're alone and crank it up to you know, 11, but they also want to entertain and be able to host all their guests and other guests VR is a great space to create an environment like that. So it's, you know, it's, it's what the technology enables the clients to do not, you know, like that there's a few people that are just that geek out of it. But but if you're only about the technology, you're missing the point, and as far as what you're trying to sell to the clients like this, because they're like, do I need this? I'm like, Well,
Unknown Speaker 53:27
you might want this system, you know, you don't nothing we don't do not needs, like, you know, like, you probably want it.
Unknown Speaker 53:38
Do you think the statement is true for interior design, that you could be a good interior designer and bad at business, and you won't make it. You could be good at business, and poor and interior designer and make it? And obviously hopefully you're good at both. Do you think that's a true statement? I do.
Unknown Speaker 53:57
It's a sales job. And you have to run a business, even if you're an independent person out of your home. Right? It has to make sense.
Unknown Speaker 54:07
So yeah, great design. That's wonderful. If it's out of the client's budget, it doesn't matter how wonderful the design is. Right? You know that? Yeah, you have the best house in the world that's designed and put out to bid. Yeah, there's a never gets built. I've heard that before. And I've had a few architects on I want to have more on and I've heard this before that. Architects obviously we'd love they love the design. But they've obviously like, you know, we're not designing art for just to be on paper, like we're designing this so that it actually gets built. I think it's a very healthy perspective. I think piggybacking on your idea, like you could pick out something that's just elaborate and amazing. But if the client can't afford to go for it, then there's just an idea essentially pay for it is I would say 10% of my day is spent on paper design. No no. Finding and finding resources and specific chanting Flash is the part that people think I do all day long. Is 10% Oh, great. All right. Oh is
Unknown Speaker 55:00
for logistics,
Unknown Speaker 55:02
running a business keeping the work room running.
Unknown Speaker 55:07
Paperwork. Yeah, the old name what my clients like I do. Yeah, parents they can do my friends versus what I actually, well, it's funny, right? Because you and I've met playing tennis Yeah. And you know, I don't so much anymore. But you know, we used to obviously, you know, we'd I'd work early in the morning, I'd go play tennis. And, you know, middle the day and you know, if some, if you told someone, hey, you know, I'm playing tennis or whatever, they didn't know, you're up at 430 answering email so that you could go do whenever and as I think, is a very common misconception of most business owners is that if people are like, oh, I want that lifestyle, but they don't understand that you're actually working, obviously, way more than a traditional nine to five or whatever. Plus, there's the stress level to you know, you're managing other people's lives, I often think of, you know, we have a small team of, you know, four or five people. And you know, as I, you know, navigate you know, I think about the RPM gauge on on your car, like, do you run a little hot? Do you run a little low that that affects overhead for hire another person and then I have to, then I can't afford them. After six months, I do a disservice. And there's a lot of stress that goes into making some of those decisions. How have you navigated? Because your what's your total team size now? 14 in house employees? Wow. And five years ago, what was it that?
Unknown Speaker 56:19
Maybe Maybe down two or three? Okay, so I've it's been? Would you say it's fair to say you've kind of had a slow organic growth? And where are you at right now? Are you look, would you hire another person? Do Would you let somebody go? Like, where do you find yourself now with 14 people I just I know, as a business owner was a fairly significant overhead, that and utilizing more of our outside outside resources to taking on an employee is a big decision. You know, we never want to let somebody go, right? Oh, it's terrible. It's not. It's That's the worst. And we employ a ton of family. You know, when COVID hit, and weak, things were unknown. We didn't know what was going to happen. You know, I was providing health insurance to a lot of family members. Right. You know, that's a big deal. That's a lot extreme is that was that 60? day window, right? Yeah, it was like February through April, we didn't know what's happened, then. Three years of hammering, it was like the 60 days, don't you let everyone get ahead of the curve? Do you let a bunch of people go because no one no one in the world knew what was happening, right? And then I especially for you guys, because you guys could retrofit and probably go pretty quickly as the explosion of DIY and staying at home. I don't like my furniture anymore. This pillow. I've looked at this for 10 years. And you know, that's obviously a simplification. But I mean, you saw it in, you know, decking material at Home Depot, or like it affected on everything, everything. And so, yeah, obviously, that was good for at least keeping your 14 People in blight. And
Unknown Speaker 57:41
we quickly realized we didn't have to worry. Like there was a worry. Yes. Yeah. But if we had to, I mean, if we looked at it, we'd rather be extend our lead times a little bit than rather than intelligence where you do it. We do it the way we know we can do it within toys that we know how to do it, rather than
Unknown Speaker 58:00
let's make a rash decision. Let's get some other people on and then that can go sideways. How do you how you just a few more questions, as we close here? How do you handle like when a client comes in and discusses pricing with you? Let's say they're how often are they looking at other shops for either home systems or design? How often do you have to do multiple bids against somebody else?
Unknown Speaker 58:25
I guess I'm pretty fortunate. We don't have that situation as often as you might think. Usually, when I'm working with another interior designer, we've had such a long standing relationship that they they're trusting that our prices are fair, we wouldn't be around if they weren't right.
Unknown Speaker 58:42
I guess we could probably get shopped most on lower quality, lower.
Unknown Speaker 58:49
Budget Monday, yeah, budget window treatments, those are easy for someone to shop. But I still think that we're incredibly competitive for like services. Well, especially with service. And I know on the home system side of it, you know, people often ask me like, well, I can get this TV at this location. And, you know, they're still the same suppliers. And I always ask them, like, well, who's hanging? Who's servicing it? And then we start asking those things are like, oh, yeah, yeah, it's just not a commodity. I Lazarus, we saw that TV ad. Exactly. No, that's it. And I tell them that because that's the biggest misconception. Yeah, is that oh, I can go on a Black Friday deal. Like no, if you have a published price these dealers can they have to match it? So that's take that out of the equation, right? Would you rather call one 800 line and wait five weeks to get service? Or would you rather call Brian at dinner and interrupt Finn and Lucia so
Unknown Speaker 59:38
and it's not just online? I mean, people are going and buying that same TV from someone in high school, rather than the next follow? I say, Yeah, and I and I tell people the two things that I tell him is, the pricing is is very transparent. And also, there's there is subtle differences in terms of the buying power, but it
Unknown Speaker 1:00:00
It's nothing that can't be or come. But the other thing they do is we just get much more, we have much more price information given to us, we know where the prices are going, because it's predetermined. We're supposed to selectively share. So podcasts maybe not too bad.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:16
But we're supposed to selectively share, but they are very upfront with us. And if you go into a big box store drilling online, you're not going to know that, if next week, it's going to be a better price. And I'll be glad to say I'm not going to try to hide that for a week, and then say why it went it went down. I want to be on your team and say, yep, this is the time we're gonna buy it. We do get shopped. Occasionally, we tell the story about Yeah, so so we had, this is a good story for toothaches, because this client originally is reached out to us, because a lot of the systems we do like they originally shot because they needed a central vac repair. And we go online, and we come up. And if you can't find somebody who's really just, that's all they do. So you get a lot of people like us. And so we came out and we were able to solve with they had a great experience with our technician that was in the field. And they called us up and he was wanting to do a technology upgrade. And he's like, you know, I've just not been happy with who I've been working with, can you come up and give me an update. So when I go out and do an upgrade, in my mind, all the pieces kind of come together. And I'm like wanting to do this and this and this. And it's all about consistency, ease of use, making sure we're the right performance. And so we're gonna go in it with that plan first, and not make a lot of compromises in my initial plan, like, you know, like,
Unknown Speaker 1:01:36
and so that's always usually what we do. So I did have one that we talked about earlier, where I sent a proposal and and sometimes you never hear from him again. And maybe they shopped you or maybe the time frame didn't work out. So sometimes we don't know, the best clients that we relationship will say, No, I got another bid. And and this is this is what they and then the challenge there is then trying to describe this as apples to oranges or apples to apples, right? So at times I in this client, I said he was starting a conversation like I mean, if you're willing to do it, can you just block out the price. So you don't have to tell them what they're charging, but just tell me what they're trying to sell you. And a lot of times it's that way, it's not apples to apples like this. So, you know, I did an intake and mine was had lots of descriptions and very of what it was. And this was like five line items, right? And I'm like, okay, but I was able to discern like, Well, you didn't do this, do this and had a conversation with him. And I said, Here's apples to apples. I gave you this. But I said, I wouldn't recommend that. So if I had to nudge it, add these three things, because those are messes. And so the client, the next day is like, Yes, I'm gonna go with you. And he went with the acknowledged and he went with the nudge proposal that I did it then went away like so we weren't at where we were. Yep. Because there's a lot of other things like that as you can. His TV was old. All these things were all like this. But again, he didn't need to do that. Right. But as you want it, I think it gives us I mean, this happens all the time in construction, I think yours because there's less moving parts, there's still a lot. But let's say you have 10 or 15 items you can explain on a house. Yeah, I there could be 1000s. And I And if you I always tell my clients, if you're building the same home at the same strata of craftsmanship and the same products, it should be within a percent or two of each other. And so therefore you shouldn't be making your decision based on who's building your house based on price, in my opinion, you shouldn't be basing it on Who do you want to spend the next year and a half of your life with communication, who do you feel comfortable with, because that's the stuff that really matters. And I feel like, again, this goes away from trying to be a commodity, it's a relationship. And I think that is the most important thing. And I think when you explain that they sort of they start understanding it a little bit more, but you have to have to earn that trust. And that's hard to do. Like yourself, we don't get into a lot of multiple bad situations. Because if we're leading designer, if they if they early on, I think we're Instagram and other social media helps us to get a sense of your personality, then I'm not for everyone. That's okay. And you're a lot harder. Yeah, I'm a lot to handle and fandom and a lot of these projects, they have to invest a lot of time. Now sometimes it can be hard to invest a lot of time in a lot of different vendors. Yes. But that's a challenge. The only thing I would say that as when people ask us that is another commonality is between the technology contractor or home systems provider.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:12
And then as someone who's a designer, it's different than either the clients that are going to move into this after that, you know, after the show, yeah, they don't want the big relationship with the plumber constantly coming back, right electrician like that. It's like that part should be done. But on the technology side and design side. Yep, there's going to be trends like we were just talking about earlier about color trends, and they want to make changes and the technology is going to change. So those are people that you want to have relationship even when the project's initial projects done, and they move in you want to be sure that you can contact them and a they also be around I mean we've been around for that time so most people don't have that worry on that side for months. But it's yeah, it's not we're gonna put a bow on it and leave we want to be your nerves sloping of which and we will end the show with this thought and I met
Unknown Speaker 1:05:00
Ask it earlier, but it kind of is a good segue to the end. You know, it seems unlikely that Lucia and Finn are going to take over the family business. What is you obviously have an awesome business, you haven't great clientele, you have 14 employees? I mean, is this I assume this is something at some point you can sell the business? How what would the transition transition or exit strategy be for a company like yours I know cuz I'm struggling with, you know, hopefully God willing, I'll be around for another 20 years of building. But you know, when it's your own name, and some of those things like I sort of am my company, I have to build it where I feel like you have a very established brand, and it's not the do good. And you know, it's union place, and like that could live on even if you're not there. Have you thought about how that would exit that? That'll be the biggest trick? Yeah, we're not? Well, we have two different two different ideas. So no, I have some ideas like this in terms of I think, the boutique nature of what we do,
Unknown Speaker 1:05:56
can be leveraged by somebody else, and expanded.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:00
And so there's some people that I think would be
Unknown Speaker 1:06:04
potentially willing to partner with us in that aspect.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:08
And then there's something that is, what's your strategy? Sometimes? What do you want to do? There'll be a day I
Unknown Speaker 1:06:14
throw the match. Boom, you're good Excelsior tie. So we'll put the police department on notice before the fires as well. And my father had a business too. And, and that was his exit strategy. Eventually, he wound down and he was fortunate he owned the building. So he had assets and things that he had built. And he and he flipped it in terms of it. Yeah. Have you ever thought or has it ever come up? I know, there's been some companies where the employees take it over, like collectively, has there been any interest within that structure itself? Or has that leader not really emerged? Or would it maybe be a collective? It's,
Unknown Speaker 1:06:49
I don't see possibly that type of a group situation. But what else? Well, the other solution would be opposed to it. I'm sorry, the other solution would be kind of like the dental practice where you need that new face of the franchise to step in. Yep. And again, the kids is right now or they're doing their own thing. But things could change like this. But that would be the other option would be to be as if you have somebody to to come in. Because, again, if we are there, you know, there'll be an overlap. You would meet somebody to kind of become the face of the friendship and they need to be the sales rep. They need to be able to take over that. We're not that old. You were no no, no, no, you got some time. Thank you very much for coming to a beautiful home to do a podcast that you had a hand it. Where can our listeners find you guys?
Unknown Speaker 1:07:35
Right and downtown Excelsior. We're open Monday through Friday. Or check out our website and union place.com Please DICOM and on social get a cup. Maybe you need place interiors and union place home systems for integrant. Yep. Well, I've everything in the show notes. And and thank you again. And yeah, thank you, Laurie. She's signing off for now. Great. All right. Thanks, guys. Thank you.
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