Episode 115 - Losers are Winners: Alex Johantgen on the Power of Doing Less
Episode #115 | Losers are Winners | The Power of Doing Less
What do garage doors, an eight-week training program, and bringing a customer's trash cans up from the curb have in common? They're all part of how Alex Johantgen is building Rise & Shine Garage Doors into a business that stands out from the competition. Alex joins Mark to talk rebranding, profitability, employee training, and why friends knock and strangers ring the doorbell. Turns out, exceptional customer service doesn't have to cost a fortune. It just takes a little thought.
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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Alex Johantgen 00:05
We believe that friends knock, strangers ring the doorbell.
Mark D. Williams 00:08
Ooh, that's a good one. Yeah,
Alex Johantgen 00:10
we prefer a knock. Obviously, they don't answer them. We'll ring the doorbell. But, and then from there, it's about building rapport, building trust, and then establishing a relationship. Where one of our core values is building relationships, and we want to build relationships not only as a team but with our customers.
Mark D. Williams 00:32
Welcome to Carous Builder Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host. We are back. We are live at Misahoos. Losers are winners. I've got Alex with Rise and Shine Garage Doors. Welcome back to the show.
Alex Johantgen 00:41
Thank you very much for having me again.
Mark D. Williams 00:42
You're back because yours truly messed up the mic or something I did wrong, and so anyway, we're back for round two. Let's do a quick little intro. We haven't had a garage door owner on before, so plus you have like the coolest colors and graphics for. I love it when a company that you don't expect flips the script with branding, and and then let's talk about some bad decisions you've made in your careers because that's what we do on Thursdays.
Alex Johantgen 01:07
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So again, yeah, I'm Alex. I'm the owner of Rise and Shine Garage Roads. We started in 2015, so we've been in business a little over 11 years now. Yeah, our brand is is definitely it stands out from the pack for sure. The funny story is we weren't always rise and shine garage doors. When we first started the business, we launched as Garage Door Repair Company, which was very generic. was didn't really stand out from the pack, but it really helped us initially from a marketing standpoint with SEO. Because when people search for garage door repairs, our name ranked really high for that. It
Mark D. Williams 01:41
reminds me of like the old phone books, right? A to Z and all that stuff, like A to Z garages, A to Z asphalt, A to Z builders. That's just funny how you
Alex Johantgen 01:49
the front of the page, right? And that was the same thing, the same concept we had with the name of the company when we started. And then you know, fast forward like seven years, we realized that our our name wasn't, it didn't stand out? It didn't leave a impression in our customers' minds to remember us. So at that time, we decided it was a great idea to rebrand, and we worked with one of the best companies in the nation on on what we wanted to do, and we came up with Rise and Shine, and the rest is history from there.
Mark D. Williams 02:18
I love it. What? So let's get into let's get into our mistakes because that's always the one that makes things interesting. What are some mistakes that you've made? You're like now in hindsight, you're like either can't believe I did that, or a lot of times they're blessing in disguise. You make a mistake and it actually turns out to be the seed of something fruitful down the road.
Alex Johantgen 02:38
Yeah, I would say one of the bigger mistakes. I think a lot of entrepreneurs early in the business they want to take on every type of job, and not every type of job is is good for you as a business, especially when you're starting off. But when you're early on, you're trying to make as much revenue as possible so you can continue to grow, continue to add employees, stuff like that. I think if I could go back, what I would want to do is tell myself to have a clear focus. So one of the losses would be not understanding opportunity cost. And so we're really focused on residential only now. We used to do commercial all the time. Commercial, it's a great industry, but when we're trying to scale our residential business, there's a huge opportunity cost as a business owner to run commercial at the same time. The big side of that is, you know, if you're doing a big commercial project that takes one, two days, maybe it's two or three texts. Now, how many of our residential customers were we unable to service, unable to get word of mouth referrals from, unable to get reviews? So that was a big opportunity cost that we realized we were missing out on by running these big commercial jobs. While we could do them well, we were really not living the best or providing the best customer service experience to our residential client base.
Mark D. Williams 03:53
How did you find that out? Was did that show up in the numbers? Did that show up in complaints? Like, how did you know that? Because it seems like honestly, it's a little bit like a builder that does also remodeling. There's kind of a healthy balance there. Some people don't do it at all for the reasons that you just explained, or they set minimums. Like I can make it relatable for me. Like very rarely will we do a remodel below 500,000. Not that I won't. I don't say no to those, but I find that the amount of effort that our team takes to get into that project-it's the same amount of-it's almost more hours, and unfortunately, the expectations are just as high, and the budgets are a lot lower. So it usually ends up being just-it's not enough to sort of kickstart it. It needs to be a bigger project, and I think that just speaks to what it takes for us to do a really good job. And there are people that are are that's their niche, right? Like, hey, this is what we exactly do. Or like most people can relate to. Like, I don't do just a bathroom. Not that the bathroom doesn't need. I just can't make any money. And if I was going to make money on it, it'd be so expensive. No one would ever pick me. And so, anyway, I just don't know how to do it. Yeah. So that was that would be my build. Explanation to kind of what I'm hearing from you.
Alex Johantgen 05:02
Yeah, so really for us, it was like looking at the numbers. Our CRM allows us to really kind of dive into those things, and so when we're looking at the opportunity cost of a big commercial job, let's say it's a full day, and maybe it takes two of our technicians to do it. Now we can track that because we know our average call booking rate when a lead comes in over the phone typically is 85% or above, but if we have two guys working on a commercial project that's all day and that fills up a lot of our capacity, and those customers that are residential customers need same day service because they're trapped in the garage, they can't get out, their cars they need to go to work. Now all of a sudden our call booking percentage drops from 85% to 75% because we missed, we weren't able to provide the level of service we needed to for those customers. So
Mark D. Williams 05:47
that's that's interesting.
Alex Johantgen 05:48
Yeah.
Mark D. Williams 05:48
So how long did that take before you realized was that a hard decision or was it pretty clear when you had the analytics like that?
Alex Johantgen 05:54
It's a hard decision, regardless, because every once in a while you have your busy times and your and your slower times, right in any business. So when you're busy, it's easy to turn down commercial. When you're slow, it's like ah, well, I mean, we have the capabilities to do it, but it's like having the the conviction to just stick by it and say like, nope, this isn't our ideal customer. We're focused on residential homeowners.
Mark D. Williams 06:18
I mean, what you say makes so much sense. I'm glad you brought this up. I think everyone goes through a maturation process where they sort of have to figure out exactly what they do, and it sort of changes. You mean you get more skillful? Maybe you. The hard part about this is you don't know when you're chasing something that can add to the bottom line and is part of the overall service. You know, there's this the statement like riches in the niches, right? Reminds me of Star Billy Sneeches on the beaches. Ah, random dad tangent there. But the point being is that if you do just one thing, think like five guys, the burger joint. You don't go there for tacos. You don't go there for sushi. You don't go there for a full-on menu. Like it's just burgers and fries. That's it, and they do very well. Simplified menu, lower overhead. Like it makes sense. The problem is most of us. I don't think I'm the only owner who has ADHD. It's hard to stay on one thing. And it's funny how many owners have you met in your career that end up being successful, and then they're like, "Oh, we should go figure out something else now. Rather than getting even more specific, I know because I've made this mistake many times. Why do you think that's a common trap for entrepreneurs? And have you fallen into
Alex Johantgen 07:25
it? Oh, absolutely! It's an easy trap to fall into. I can tell you, commercial wasn't the only thing we tried doing. I mean, we've tried doing the tin wrap on the outside of garage doors when other contractors, like siding professionals, are better at those things. And you know, we've tried doing man doors, stuff like that. What's a man door? Like a front entry door, side entry door, like on a garage.
Mark D. Williams 07:46
Okay,
Alex Johantgen 07:47
stuff like that. And yeah, we're not experts on that. And you know, in order to, it also doesn't it doesn't provide a clear lane for your employees. Like, what are we doing? Like, what is our focus? What is what are we best at? I think when you can explain that to your employees that this is the lane we're in. This is what we're going to be focused on, and this is how we're going to provide our customers the best level of service. Then you get a lot of buy-in from your team.
Mark D. Williams 08:10
I mean, 100% agree. How are how many years have you guys have been doing that now?
Alex Johantgen 08:15
The focus, yeah, it's been about 18 months since. Oh, so it's pretty
Mark D. Williams 08:19
recent.
Alex Johantgen 08:19
But the other things prior to commercial, like probably five years.
Mark D. Williams 08:23
So, have you noticed like profitability? Like, can you speak? Do you have any idea? Like, has your margins gone up five, 10% Like, what have you actually noticed? Are you making more money and higher percent of margins since you've done that?
Alex Johantgen 08:35
Yeah, our net profit has definitely increased since we've done this. Yeah,
Mark D. Williams 08:38
any idea what what number that would be?
Alex Johantgen 08:40
So, like last last year, our net profit was around 20%
Mark D. Williams 08:44
No, I was curious, which is amazing. Congratulations! No, how much how much did it change? What was it? 24 months is about
Alex Johantgen 08:50
5%
Mark D. Williams 08:51
So you went from 5% to 20% It
Alex Johantgen 08:53
was a five.
Mark D. Williams 08:54
Oh, I was like, dang, bro, that's amazing. Okay, well, still 5% is amazing. I thought it was 15% I was like, "Holy smokes! Commercials, you're dragging me down, buddy. 5% a huge number. Yep, that's amazing. And the reason I was drilling in, I think it's it's a very simple example, but a really powerful one. And you know, I think, how would you say you're only 18 months into this? How do you avoid a lot of owners or entrepreneurs end up being serial entrepreneurs, and so you start one business, and we-it's hard to know. You go down this road, and it's unsuccessful. It takes away from the main business. That was a bad idea.
Alex Johantgen 09:32
Yeah.
Mark D. Williams 09:33
But what if it? How do we? We're so optimistic as a. You can't be an entrepreneur and not be delusionally optimistic. Absolutely. In my opinion, yeah. So, of course, we think every idea we have is a great one. Yeah. So, how do you counsel yourself? Because you might have the next good good idea, and so, like, I mean, we're sitting in our Misa Hu's flagship model. Like, this was a spinoff of a bunch of failures, and I think chasing this was a good endeavor. I've learned so much by doing it, but if I only stayed and did what I've always been doing, I'd only get what I've always gotten. So, how do you still innovate and evolve if you're not chasing down some of these dead ends?
Alex Johantgen 10:11
So, for us, we're always trying to make our company better. We're always trying to get 1% better, whether it's from our service department. How can we improve our our training processes. So, in the last two years, we've built an actual training facility in our warehouse where we run a class every time we do a new hire. Every time we do a new hire class, we do a eight week training program with those employees before they ever go into a customer's home and fix something. And we're always trying to make that class better. Every class we run, we learn something from it. How could we improve it? How could we, how could we better this process? How can how can we make sure all of our technicians have the best tools to ensure that they're able to serve our customers the way we want?
Mark D. Williams 11:00
This episode of the Curious Builder is brought to you by Olivin Vine Socials. If you're a builder, a designer, or an architect looking to grow your brand without dancing on TikTok or spending your whole life on social media, listen up. Olivin Vine Socials specializes in Pinterest marketing, blogging, and email strategy for luxury home brands. They help you turn your beautiful work into a strategic SEO-driven content that drives real traffic and connects you with your ideal clients without burning you out. Ready to grow smarter and not harder? Visit OlivinvineSocials.com and tell them the Cures Builder set to you. Just so you know, I've been working with Alyssa over at Olivinvine for three years. She helped us launch the podcast. She's helped us grow our brand at Mark Williams Custom Homes. I could not do what I've done without her help. This episode is brought to you by Pella Windows and Doors. I've used Pella for 21 years as the exclusive window company on every one of my builds. When people ask me who I trust for Windows and Doors, it's Pella. Every time, their craftsmanship, their innovation, the top-tier service make them a no-brainer for any custom home builder or designer who demand the best. Whether you're designing something bold or building something with timeless elegance, Pella has you covered. They're also the only window company that has a lifetime warranty on all of their windows. I've gotten to know all their people at Pella Corporate as well as locally here at Pella Northland. I'm proud to call them our partners and our friends. Visit pella.com to learn more and connect with your local reps today. Also, for more information, you can listen to Episode One where I interview their founders, as well as Episode 109, where we talk about the innovation at Pella. Any idea what it costs to train, or or what it costs to set up this sort of training center in house, because most companies would think I can't do that, I can't afford it. It takes too much time. But when you when you hear someone like actively taking a role in training, and another entrepreneur like myself is like super impressed because you're like, I know what a big lift that is to actually do that. And it's funny because relatively speaking, and this isn't meant to be offensive, but like because all businesses, we still have to do all the same things. But like building and installing a garage door is far less moving ports than building a complex custom home like you're in. That being said, I've never met a custom home builder that builds any sort of training module that would do that. So why is it that a a simpler processed company like yourself, like we not expect it. Like it's amazing. Why don't we ever hear about it in the complex world? Like it doesn't exist. I've never heard of a custom home builder that had like now. Sure, you might send your people to training places, but like I've never seen someone that has a you know built-in house that they train their people on.
Alex Johantgen 13:38
Yeah, my guess would be because I would be under the assumption that you are hiring out some of the the most of them. Yeah. So
Mark D. Williams 13:47
so you're hiring professionals like I'm hiring you to do garage doors.
Alex Johantgen 13:50
So I want to make sure that the professional I send your home is trained the way I want it to be trained. That the outcome each customer that we send that technician to is the same. Whether it's technician A, B, or C, they're following a process that's going to deliver the same outcome.
Mark D. Williams 14:05
Okay, that that makes sense because you're right. I guess you we don't self perform anything, so we're hiring companies that do have training processes. That so, in some sense, we're sort of skipping that phase because they're not our own employees. We're not that we're not investing in them, and we do personally. We do lots of. I don't think about it in training, but we're doing tons of events where you know our team is on with the architects, and I think part of it is every single home that a custom home builder remodeler would do is usually different. And not that garage doors aren't different, but it's got to open, it's got to track. I mean, you have a lot of similarities. I would imagine that a lot of the
Alex Johantgen 14:38
components are the same. The look of it's different, but the install, the components, the hardware, a lot of it's similar.
Mark D. Williams 14:43
How do you train EQ? You know that emotional quadrant of like how people relate to other people. As a business owner, it's one of the things that I value the most, and I think you know I think of high end touch and like any person who's wearing you know rise and shine colors and interacts with the client. Like it's representing your brand specifically, and all owners feel a certain kinship to their brand, right? Because it's usually an extension of who they are on some level. How do you have peace or comfort that the technicians and the people that are going into other people's homes ride your culture and represent you well?
Alex Johantgen 15:18
Yeah, so we have communication training essentially part of our eight-week program, and so a lot of it goes back to the way we show up. So we have a process where our technicians, when they show up in their decaled vans with a big rooster on it, we want them to park in a specific spot on the street that's in view of the front door, so that the customer can see. You know, most customers know you're coming. If you pull up right in front of the front door, they can see the van. They can see the logo. We don't want you to sit in your car when you pull up. You should be getting out right away when you go up to greet the customer. You're going to knock. We believe that friends knock, strangers ring the doorbell.
Mark D. Williams 15:52
Ooh, that's a good one. Yeah, we
Alex Johantgen 15:54
prefer a knock. Obviously, they don't answer, then we'll ring the doorbell. But and then from there, it's about building rapport, building trust, and then establishing a relationship. Where one of our core values is building relationships, and we want to build relationships not only as a team but with our customers. And so, from there, one of our other steps of the process is looking for good deeds throughout the job. If the customer has a light bulb out in the garage, like we're going to offer to replace that if they left their garbage cans at the end of the street, and they've been picked up. We're going to bring those up to the to where they belong. Things like that. So those are the little things that we try to do and try to train our technicians on to really be a step above our competition.
Mark D. Williams 16:33
I mean, I love that. I think I can appreciate this as a home builder. Plus, I get my garage door serviced regularly from a service company, in just terms of oiling the tracks and the stuff that nobody knows you need to do, you do because it's your job. But I think it's always impressive when hospitality. I mean, hospitality is always well received, but I think it's particularly well received when it's in industries we don't expect it in. Like I just saw the other day, like the trash guy, you know, like waved. I'm like, it's just simple stuff, I guess. Usually, those types of things are not rocket science. Our book for the fourth quarter is Unreasonable Hospitality. Have you read it?
Alex Johantgen 17:10
Oh, I've not.
Mark D. Williams 17:10
I'll get you a copy. And what that book reminds me of is that it's not money that leads to hospitality; it's thoughtfulness. Because most of the things I'm guessing you're training, you're like knocking and ringing the doorbell has nothing to do with money. It has all to do with thoughtfulness. And I, when you said it, friends knock and strangers ring, you're 100 right. Although your neighbors would probably knock on the sunroom window as like the little kid like waving, "Hey, is Simon ready? I love that degree of thoughtfulness, and I know just I'm trying to think right now in our process, like what what things could we do along those lines? Because I think it's a really good move on your part.
Alex Johantgen 17:51
Yeah, we also talk about things like body language and tonality, like making sure you have the right body language in the home, making sure you have the right mindset. We have our service managers as call by call coaches, and they they talk to our technicians as they're they're receiving a new job, and we'll the call by call coach will call them, make sure they're feeling good, making sure they're in the right mindset to go out there and perform the service the way we want
Mark D. Williams 18:16
it. Do you ever get pushback from employees, or when you're hiring, they kind of know what they're getting into because I would imagine someone coming to work for you also is like, "Whoa!
Alex Johantgen 18:25
Yeah.
Mark D. Williams 18:26
Although I could see it being very attractive, like I did not expect this from a garage door company. I mean, that's to me is why I'm so excited about. I'm like, this this level of hospitality is not something I would expect.
Alex Johantgen 18:36
So one of the things that we love doing. So in our recruiting process, the the first day they come in for an interview, we give them a tour of our entire facility. We want to show them everything. We want to show them from the warehouse, the replenishment bays where all of our guys load up their materials, how organized it is. We want to show them our training center where they're going to be for the next eight weeks if we hire them. We introduce them to our call by call coaches and explain kind of what their role is and how they keep them on track and keep them engaged and making sure that we're helping them win the day. So our goal is to help our technicians win the day, and then you know from there, if that first interview goes well, we actually schedule a secondary interview, which is a ride along interview where we get to bring that technician or that potential applicant out with a technician on an active job site, so they get to see it. They get to talk to a technician, hear their experience, hear their feedback about the company, about working for us, and then from there
Mark D. Williams 19:30
make a decision on if they want to move forward. Dude, you could start a training protocol. Everything you've said just makes where. Where do you get a lot of your thought process, or have you? I think sometimes owners sometimes feel paralyzed when it comes to training, because they're like, how do I take you know the decades of experience I have in my like, how do I now with AI literally dump it in your core values and everything else and be like, you know, write me an eight week training program. But until AI came out, like, how do you hire someone to help you with that? Is it a third party? Is it in house? Is it you? Because I think a lot of times owners are like. I think this is true of like employee handbooks of all these things. They sound great. The real magic is in the doing, in the practicing of it. How have you found like where did you start with the training, or how did you how do you sort of implement that?
Alex Johantgen 20:11
Yeah, I think it goes back to being a part of like a best practice group or like you know your trade collective, getting around people who are do who are in the same industry or or similar industries and seeing what they're doing. So these ideas we didn't just come up with out of thin air. These are things that we've learned from going to trade shows, going being a part of best practice groups, learning from contractors who are bigger than us, maybe in the same industry or in a in a different industry, but still in the trades. So none of these are like brand new ideas, but then we take those ideas, we bring them in house, and we make them our own.
Mark D. Williams 20:43
I mean, I think you nailed it on the head. I think that's. I hope that this podcast, having you on as a guest, you know, whoever is listening to this, you know, is applying it to their business. That's one of the reasons why I like to read so much or listen to other podcasts. Most of the podcasts I listen to are not building related; they're business related. Just again, it's. If you ever noticed like when you're driving or you're talking, like these thoughts come, like this conversation. You know, we're joking, like neither one of us remember what we talked about last time. Maybe it was maybe oh, it's 1,000% different. But I think you know that's what's sort of interesting each time you have a conversation because like what's on your mind this week, or and I think I think it's one of the things that dicting is the wrong word. I think one of the things that's enjoyable entrepreneurship is that no day is the same, and I think I sort of joke that I've never been bored in my life, or shouldn't say life, in bored in business. I certainly have been tired or or overworked, or but boredom is not one of the consequences of entrepreneurship. There's a lot of other things, but I think that's one of the things that attracts people to it is because it's very new and very fresh, and people do get sort of tired of like the same old, same old. We need something to keep us creative and keep us coming back for more.
Alex Johantgen 21:51
Yeah, there's definitely other factors like maybe some stress and anxiety that come with being an entrepreneur and being a business owner. But yeah, the the thing I love about it is finding the next new thing, the next new thing we can bring in, the next new thing we can implement to make our system better, our process better, our technicians better, and at the end of the day, the customer experience better.
Mark D. Williams 22:12
I love it. Well, thank you for coming back round two. Hopefully, we don't need a third. Yeah. If you want to know more, we'll have everything in the show notes. Thanks again for coming on the Curious Pillar.
Alex Johantgen 22:20
All right. Thanks, Mark.
Mark D. Williams 22:23
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