Episode 105 - Losers are Winners: Gabe Norcross Returns to Finish the Story He Couldn't Finish Alone
Episode #105 | Losers are Winners | Gabe Norcross Returns
Gabe Norcross is back for part two of Losers are Winners, and Mark doesn't let him off easy this time. They get into why raising his rates cost him a client but saved his business, the difference between bending and breaking, and how losing his house three years ago cracked open a whole new set of dreams he never would have found otherwise. It ends on a quote Gabe carries with him now, broken crayons still color, and honestly Mark's already designing the merch in his head.
About The Curious Builder
The host of the Curious Builder Posdast is Mark D. Williams, the founder of Mark D. Williams Custom Homes Inc. They are an award-winning Twin Cities-based home builder, creating quality custom homes and remodels — one-of-a-kind dream homes of all styles and scopes. Whether you’re looking to reimagine your current space or start fresh with a new construction, we build homes that reflect how you live your everyday life.
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Gabe Norcross 00:04
There is a silver lining in in all this stuff, and it was hard still dealing with it. But to continue the conversation around it and normalize the hardships that we go through as humans and in this business-that's really that's that's my new passion: is just normalizing how hard it can be, but you're also not alone.
Mark D. Williams 00:33
Welcome to the Curious Builder Podcast. I'm Mark, your host. Today we are back at Misahoos with Gabe Norcross, the one and only from Louisville, Kentucky, and we are doing losers are winners. Four and a half years ago, I mean, we increased our margin by several points because of contractor collision. Almost identical. That's the power of people just talking openly and honestly, and showing you what they do and how they do it. Is just understanding. I mean, that's the whole point of like the collectives that we have is just to talk entrepreneurship. It's the point of this podcast. It's not to hide or be a gate barrier to this information. It's to talk about it. That everyone listening, and including ourselves, would be able to benefit our own business to be better operators. And here's what I'll tell you: that the more sophisticated you are in your business, the more sophisticated the clients that you'll work for, the high, you know, the more, the higher clientele you'll achieve. Because I tell you what, people that operate at the top-they already know all this stuff, and they have been doing it in their businesses for decades. It's why they're successful enough to do and afford whoever's doing the work for them. So when they see that their contractor is that sophisticated, it takes the stereotype away of chucking a truck and the person that doesn't know what they're doing. They're like, "This guy is a not only is a top tier talent because we always think we have to be the best builder, and I'm not discounting that that's important. You have to have the skill and craft, right? Like you know, I'm aware that there's only a handful of people that can do what we've done here in this particular house that we're sitting in, Amisa Hoos. That being said, it's far more impressive to somebody that you have a machine that they can trust and that they believe is because the worst thing that you could do is get into a build and realize that your builder can't afford to finish the house because they've either run the job incorrectly or because they don't have systems in place so that when things go awry and they'll always go awry that they can cover it or that they can at least know where they're at. It's like going on a cross country trip, you know, with a tanker, but not knowing what your gas is. I mean, you might run out anywhere. I mean, that's crazy. The
Gabe Norcross 02:27
difference between what my margin was before this project and what it was after, for you know, a small remodeling company, and anybody listening who's small remodeling company, put an extra 20k in my pocket. That, as a small business, that keeps me in business another month, month and a half, two months if I don't have any work, and if I want to warranty my projects and stay in business, like which everybody wants to do. And what I would explain to my clients is, I had I lost a project because of this same conversation. They were they wanted a kitchen for 250, and a kitchen, and it was a whole redesign, and but their choices were 350, and they could not understand why it was so high, and so I broke it down for them, and they said, "You're double dipping, you're making too much money, and I'm like, "The money that I'm making on your project keeps me in business one more month, and then after that, I'm like, no, my rates are too low because I would only be in business for a month. So then I raised it, and now I and I landed a project with somebody who understands like what I'm trying to do and what the level of execution, what it actually costs.
Mark D. Williams 03:39
Here's the advantage of I think when you're younger, or I shouldn't say put age to it, because some people get to it faster than others. Honestly, I'm I'm a slow learner. I mean, I've been doing for 22 years, and I've only really picked this stuff up for the last four or five years, and so right. But I mean, there you pick somebody like Brad Levitt or Nick Schiffer. I mean, they're way younger in their career. I always forget how young Nick is. He's way young, and so, but he's been a top tier operator for maybe only four or five years into his business. You know, he's been in business now for over a decade. But I don't think age necessarily is a dictator of whether you learn this or not. Sometimes it's just experience, loss, and how open you are to learning. That's why I think that people that leave like corporate America or business and then get into construction can do extremely well very fast because they have they've already learned those entrepreneurial sort of safeguards and they can scale. It's hard, as you know, we've you and I've talked offline before. It's hard for you to scale what you're currently doing because you do so much of the labor yourself. It's your talent, and so it's hard to let that go. Some people have an easier time of it because it was never their talent, and so it's easier to do that. But scale is a whole other skill set. You know, I look at somebody like Brad Robinson. He's phenomenal at scale. He's got five different companies. All that's all he did. Now there's a point where, as a friend, sometimes I worry about people that just scale to scale to scale. It's just like, but for to what end? Somewhere in all of this, everyone has to find their own. Balance and also a balance, and sometimes they're different.
Gabe Norcross 05:03
Yeah, I coming from California, having 1111 employees, and you know all the overhead, and where that ended up getting me, and then to where I'm at in Louisville, where I have one current employee, I have a I have a laborer who works for me, and I have 1099 finished carpenter that that pops in and out, but that's the scale I want to be at. And we have talked about this on you know another podcast and offline as well. I don't want to scale. I don't want to get any bigger than this. I only want to do two or three intentional projects a year because I have other aspirations in my life that actually will help me balance because I have more to give than just what I do to your house to make it better, and it's taken me a long time to like find that voice and like oh I do know stuff like I have knowledge around this business that isn't necessarily just the craft, and none of that would have come about had I not gone to the Contractor Coalition and that how I ended up there is a is a pretty cool story too. It's but it's have conversations with people. Everybody you meet in this coalition, build her all of the the family that curious builder collectives. They all want to help. We are all in that room because we want to help. I don't want anybody to have to learn the lessons I learned, and I don't know who said it at the coalition, but it's like, how can we compress time? Well, you cannot make the $400,000 mistake. How about that? Like that. That'll that's the problem of storytelling.
Mark D. Williams 06:31
So it's Mike Weaver that has kind of coined that term. You know, compress time. I I love that. You know, by sharing the stories, you churn it, or by leading by example, or just you know, sometimes people, you know, when you put something on Instagram or you put a blog together or you share a story, there are certain amount of people. There's a great line that says, "Those that care don't matter, and those that matter don't care. And you know, certain people have a hard time with sharing because they feel like they're going to be judged. Get it? That's a human nature thing. Then there are some people that have zero issue sharing, but people misunderstand why they share. Some people think they share because of vanity or ego, and I'm not saying that there's not some of that in there. We all have an ego. I mean, why'd you take a shower this morning? Why did you dress up? You know, because you it either makes you feel good, which is totally fine. You know, why do you wear a blue shirt or you know a comfortable pair of pants. I think there's sometimes we discount those things like they don't exist. Everybody has an ego doesn't make ego bad. Now we do because we've been taught that.
Gabe Norcross 07:30
Yeah,
Mark D. Williams 07:30
but we also know that sometimes ego unhinged can be terrible, and so it's like every I don't you know I heard something recently that I really like that everything is a poison depending on the dose, water-it's called drowning.
Gabe Norcross 07:43
Yeah, but yet without
Mark D. Williams 07:45
water, you can't live.
Gabe Norcross 07:46
Air-if you drink too much water at one time, yeah, you cannot survive it. Yeah, you drown. Yeah,
Mark D. Williams 07:51
yeah. But like, I just think it's-but that's true of almost anything. Laughing-have you ever done it? Where like you know, your little kid-they laugh so hard they pee their pants, or like you know, like stop laughing-it hurts my stomach. You know, I mean, but literally, it just-I think it's just balance. I think that's what all of us-we fail. I know I fail trying to find words that really. I think that's why I speak so much in analogies, is because I think the story. Probably because we're also trained from youth for parables and things like that. Like I just-that's-I wonder if that's why I do it. I talk. My wife sometimes gets so mad at me. Why do you, why do you talk so much in analogies? But it just makes sense. But as I go back deeper, I wonder if it's not just the exposure of the Bible and the amount of parables that I've had. I don't know. Do you do you find that you analogies or analogies? Oh, I use analogies all the time. When it comes to quality, craftsmanship, and performance, Pella sets the standard. Whether you're building custom homes or designing a timeless space, Pella offers innovative window and door solutions that blend beauty and efficiency. With showrooms and experts around the country, Pella makes it easy to find the perfect fit for your next project and their team to support it. Build with confidence. Build with Pella. Visit Pella.com to explore products and connect with your local rep today. For more information, you can listen to episode one or listen to episode 109, where we bring on Pella owners and founders at Pella Northland, as well as their innovative team behind the steady set innovation,
Gabe Norcross 09:24
and I some are so off the wall, or and that people around me have a hard time understanding where I'm going with it. But also, like the people who are close, who I know are also neurodivergent, they're like I don't have to say anything. Like they pick it up, and I'm like, those are the people that I like surround myself with because it's easier to, it's easier to just be myself too. But and I think what you said too is like it's for me knowing my now knowing my diagnosis has been a game changer. It's like it's become a superpower for me, and I've leveraged it for for the positive. It has negative effects on in some parts of my life, but I know when to navigate those now. Before I just it sent me into depression, and so like understanding my brain and how it works and how it talks to my body and how it runs my business, and it's like I just got super introspective on how how I show up and when I need to not show up, and just take care of myself.
Mark D. Williams 10:24
I just thought of something because I think I've tried to start several times here. The audience at this point is pretty cued into my neurodiversion. I like that word, but like I was thinking about you know what we were talking about setting the 10% aside. That we I got I lost. It's my fault. As typical, I went down the wrong the wrong branch of the tree, totally. But you know, going back to it, is that the reason you need to be profitable, the reason you set that money aside, is that you can make good business decisions for the client and for yourself. Because when you're strapped and you have no money or no liquidity, and you're worried about your people or you're worried about making payroll, it's funny, isn't it, that most owners think about their payroll. They think about themselves last. You had mentioned this on your episode that you paid everyone. I mean, I know people that have sold, you know, their, you know, some of their 401k or whatever to make payroll. I think there's this narrative out there that people that you know people that make money that they pay themselves first, and that that's I don't I've not found that to be true. Most of the people and other crooks out there, sure, there's crooks in every industry, but I do think that most of the people sort of run themselves in ruin, and then eventually they don't know when to say no or to ask for help. You're swimming in the ocean with an anvil, and you don't know what to do. And ultimately, if you have a life raft, you sort of take people down on a life raft with you, and that's a scary thing to say, you know. In the last episode, you'd kind of mentioned, as terrible as it was, you know, you'd mentioned at the end the silver lining was is you actually had the equity in your house. Now it was your dream, and you, but you had to sell the dream, if you will. You had to kill the dream, which honestly you could almost say is more heartbreaking. It's hard to get a new dream. There's this old thing that my dad and cousins used to always talk about, which is, what is harder to dream or to achieve? And our family always argued it was harder to dream because how can you achieve something if you haven't dreamed it? You and and so the dream sort of comes first, and so sometimes to re put back together the broken glass and come up with a new dream is much more daunting than people think. Anyway,
Gabe Norcross 12:24
yeah, I think our world because our family only lived in California, and that's where our whole world was. That the dream was to be there and established there. I never would have known that there could be other dreams to be chased had I not had to dismantle that one, and the opportunities that have come out of that would have never passed through my psyche ever had I not had I not had not had that breakdown.
Mark D. Williams 12:54
Let me ask you this, and I don't know the answer to this. It was three years ago.
Gabe Norcross 12:59
Yes,
Mark D. Williams 13:00
are you have you gotten to the place that you're thankful that experience happened, and do you feel like you're a better place personally, professionally, and with your family, or are you still trying to find find that yet?
Gabe Norcross 13:15
It's duality, so I wish no one would ever have to go through that experience, but I wouldn't be the person I am today without that experience. And money's money; it'll come and go. That house was just a house. As long as the perspective is that both my kids and my wife and my dog were in that truck driving across the country, and had if my house burned down and those three humans were safe, everything else is just is replaceable. And I think we tend to forget that the really the most important thing are the people. And I learned very hard lessons, but I'm also leveraging those lessons in a way that hopefully can help others to not have to learn those lessons or can navigate them if they are learning those lessons. And so there is gratitude for that journey or the journey I'm still on. It'll be ever, it'll be continued. That journey will continue for the rest of my life. But yeah, there is there is gratitude, or I am grateful that I went through that to a certain extent because there is a silver lining in in all this stuff, and it was hard still dealing with it, but to continue the conversation around it and normalize the hardships that we go through as humans and in this business-that's really that's that's my new passion-is just normalizing how hard it can be. But you're also not alone.
Mark D. Williams 14:56
Yeah, I think that's extremely well said. I I think you you. You don't know. It's not always about as a man. You think like, oh, you know how tough you are. But there's that's like a a pop culture or a cultural thing. Or it's probably honestly probably a human thing. I think everyone wonders. But when you go and even when I think sometimes when people break, they then they think, well, I'm broken. But then to rebuild yourself, like failure is not failure. That's the whole point of this particular series right now, losers or winners. Is that out of loss, out of failure, that it's really just an event? It's a milestone on the way to something. You know, whether it's better or not is up to the actions that you that you do after that event. And you know, you mentioned you have a double PhD in hardship and life experiences, but you know that wisdom. I mean, I think when you're younger and you and you hear about these wise people, whether they're people you, you know, read about in the Bible, or you know, I saw this great quote about Gandhi yesterday on Instagram, or you know, I love quotes, and so I see all these amazing quotes. But like, they're very most of those quotes, if you had to guess, are not from young men and women. They're usually like 6070, 80 years old, and they've been filled with heartache. And turns out, if you told the young man that they would be a lot, that if they could be wise, most people would say, "Yes, I'd love to be wise. But what those wise people would probably tell you at some point is like, in order to be wise, you've got to take a licking, and you've got to go through some some difficult experiences, and I don't think there's any way out. I think that's life. I think everyone has to go through
Gabe Norcross 16:27
through,
Mark D. Williams 16:28
yeah,
Gabe Norcross 16:28
through. You can't, you can't circumnavigate it. It's the lessons aren't learned from going around. You have to go through, and it's really hard to to to take that journey, but it's the only way. the the you you just said something about bending and breaking. I feel that human nature is to just continue to bend and bend and bend and bend and bend as long as you can, and I wish that I would have broken earlier and not let the weight of the bend load up for so long. But there's a I like quotes too. There's a quote that I often remind myself that broken crayons still color.
Mark D. Williams 17:18
Oh, that is a baller quote. Broken crayons still color. That's a great quote, buddy. Yeah, like I'm already thinking about like a shirt that would look like that. Like I'm already like merging this. I love that. Where did you hear that quote?
Gabe Norcross 17:33
I just saw it come through on Instagram somewhere. Yeah.
Mark D. Williams 17:37
Oh man, I'm gonna literally write that down because I'm
Gabe Norcross 17:39
there. Might be a merch company already with it, so just FYI, if you trademark it, yeah. But I'm
Mark D. Williams 17:45
not going to trademark, but that's your. You still
Gabe Norcross 17:47
have something to offer because you broke doesn't mean that you're not you're not still here and you're not still good, and you and you still have meaning.
Mark D. Williams 17:57
I don't think we can end a podcast any better than that, buddy. Thank you for tuning into the Curious Builder podcast. We are Mondays with our episodes, where we try to be, and Thursday episodes, 20 minutes. Thanks for tuning in to Curious Builder Podcast. If you like this episode, do us a favor: share it with three other business owners. The best way that we can spread what we're doing is by word of mouth, and with your help, we can continue to help other curious builders expand their business. Please share it with your friends, like and review online, and thanks again for tuning in.
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