Episode 91 - Losers are Winners: Josh Ferri Grew Too Fast, Hired Wrong, & Paid the Price
Episode #91 | Losers are Winners | Josh Ferri Grew Too Fast, Hired Wrong, & Paid the Price
Josh Ferri of Lakeside Decking didn't set out to build decks — he started with a cabinet shop, pivoted when he realized where the real money was, and ended up running one of the most buttoned-up outdoor living companies in the Twin Cities. Mark and Josh dig into the hiring mistakes that come with growing too fast, why Josh tells every single client "I never want to see you again" with a straight face, and how a $750 design fee weeds out the tire kickers before they waste anyone's time. It's a masterclass in running a tight ship in a very crowded trade.
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.
Support the Show:
-
Josh Ferri 00:04
We won't take any thing from you other than $750 to do a design, a rendering, a plan. I want to know how many screws I need on this project. I want to know how
Mark D. Williams 00:12
many steps. That's your pre construction
Josh Ferri 00:14
agreement, basically, pretty much, yeah, but we've had clients come to us, been like, listen, the deck is 12 by 12 is right outside. And we're doing this because there's no way you're coming to me later and saying, I don't know. That's what it's gonna look like.
Mark D. Williams 00:32
Welcome to cures builder Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host today, I'm joined with Josh ferry from Lakeside deck and CO it's conveniently labeled on his left Peck. You'll see that in the social shorts. Thanks for coming in, Josh,
Josh Ferri 00:43
yeah, absolutely right, to be here,
Mark D. Williams 00:45
right in Long Lake. So you're like, 15 minutes from my office,
Josh Ferri 00:47
exactly.
Mark D. Williams 00:48
Welcome to curious builder. HQ,
Josh Ferri 00:50
yeah, this is an awesome place, yeah.
Mark D. Williams 00:52
Well, thank you. Well, what you got losers are winners. I gave you the option between, you know, actually, I'm kind of rebranding it a little bit the story of the scar. You know, it's like, you've got scars, yeah, just like, they just have way better reaction. I actually find it hard to think of, like, inside the winds.
Josh Ferri 01:08
It's, we try and, like, track our wins as best as we can, but it's, you're, right. It's hard because they're, they're the winds are always like, either really big or like, they're just tiny, little ones here and there. But they, they're what makes the company, but the losses are, like, I got a bunch of those, but
Mark D. Williams 01:24
that's what you learn from I mean, I think it's, we celebrate the loss. I don't mean like the word loss or failure, right? It's kind of clickbaity. But really, it's, it's the hard miles, it's the hard work, you know, think about, like, exercise or fitness. It's, it's the hard work that you put in that yields the healthy result. Well, there's a show
Josh Ferri 01:40
on HBO called shrinking. I don't know if you've heard of it. Oh yeah, it's, you know, psychiatrists and other things. And there's one scene where a guy says he's, I have a lot of scars, and his therapist is like, what a shame to be 40 something and not have any and I'm only 31 but still, like, there's a lot of them, which is, I think what makes a good company.
Mark D. Williams 02:01
How long have you had your
Josh Ferri 02:02
company? So I founded my company in 2016 we were a cabinet building company called garage shop designs. And then I realized I wanted to do decks and outdoor living instead. So in about 2022 very early 2022 I just changed the name. And then no more. No more, only, only decks.
Mark D. Williams 02:20
I'm curious what led to, what led to that pivot?
Josh Ferri 02:24
Can I be honest with you?
Mark D. Williams 02:25
Of course,
Josh Ferri 02:25
there's a lot more money in decks than there is in cabinets.
Mark D. Williams 02:28
Yeah, really,
Josh Ferri 02:28
yeah, that's just and so I also realized that decks are very interesting because they're, they're the one niche of the construction industry where you can see every facet of the construction industry. There can be plumbing, there can be electrical, there can not so much drywall, but there can be everything, but everything that you do is on display. You can see the framing from the below. You can see the decking up top. You can see the railing, so any imperfections are full, you know, front and center. So if you're somebody who's meticulous, like a cabinet builder, for instance, deck building comes, if you want to make high end decks, it comes really naturally. And also working outside is much better. That's all, yeah, except
Mark D. Williams 03:08
when it's minus 20,
Josh Ferri 03:09
we do it,
Mark D. Williams 03:09
yeah,
Josh Ferri 03:10
all year round.
Mark D. Williams 03:10
I know, I know. I know we we love our state here, in fact. You know, it's funny, because yesterday, with the day we're recording, this is a Monday. Yesterday was like 80,
Josh Ferri 03:17
yeah?
Mark D. Williams 03:17
I was like, actually, in one day, I went from like, I kind of missed the cold already. Yeah, I don't like it when it's hot and muggy.
Mark D. Williams 03:22
Yeah,
Josh Ferri 03:22
I know.
Mark D. Williams 03:23
Want it perfect. How? Um, one more question on that, just because now I'm really interested in your business, because I don't know that much about it. Do you stay just in decking? I mean, does it go into four season, three season? Does it go into landscaping? I mean, I imagine there's some scope creep there.
Josh Ferri 03:37
Absolutely. We call outdoor living,
Mark D. Williams 03:39
yes. So
Josh Ferri 03:40
we're Lakeside decking. We do porches, pavers. We'll do lots of louvered pergolas, outdoor kitchens, retractable screens, but yeah, we almost all those touch on the decking or the outdoor living space.
Mark D. Williams 03:55
And how often would you also subcontract with like a custom home builder like myself? So a lot of times, at least, that's how I do it. I'm curious in our market. So typically, if I'm building a home, like I'm having my friend, like I'm managing it right, my framer will usually then do the deck, or a trimmer, or, you know, obviously I've got GC, so I've got all the people landscaping, I've got landscape architects, things like that. But there are certain times where it's like, yeah, a company that would just do that, it seems like that would be.
Josh Ferri 04:21
So the it's funny you mentioned that, because that's actually what I emailed you about originally to be on the podcast, was, how are how we think that custom home builders should be utilizing specialists in the outdoor living field? Because you guys, no offense, but it's hard to keep up with all the changes that are constantly happening. There's new materials, there's new privacy rails, there's new this, there's new that, and it's my job to keep up on those all the time. So while your deck building crew may be good at building a whole bunch of stuff, my crews are only deck builders. That is all they do. All day long, pergolas, screening porches, and they've gotten really good at it. So for what. Clients are paying for custom homes. It's the same thing as, like, no offense, but you wouldn't have the drywall or do the plumbing you
Mark D. Williams 05:06
mentioned before your previous career. A cabinet shop, yeah, a trimmer could build cabinets, as they often do, but, I mean, a cabinet shop is really good at staying the latest and greatest on cabinet hardware and all that kind of stuff, and also supply and demand. But I think recently, like, I love saunas, both myself, but also as kind of very pivoted to a lot of wellness based home building and how we're trying to augment people's lifestyles. But we just partnered with a company out in Utah called symmetry. And as good as we are, like, even architects, like, they're good, very talented, not that they can't do it, but like, if all you build is high end saunas and design them all around the country, all around the world. Like, don't you think you're probably better at that one niche? Yeah, so now we are outsourcing our design for just a sauna. Yeah? It makes total sense that you would have a specialty in, you know, decking, pergolas and that kind
Josh Ferri 05:54
of thing. Yeah? And working with Lakeside decking, we take a very consultative approach. So we're going to be the first to tell you if something's a bad idea that you as a builder might not be thinking about later on, that we're going to be telling our clients, we would tell you the same thing. So for instance, we would tell our clients, like, don't do x, because you're going to own this home for 10 years. It sounds great. Instagram said it was such a great idea. I'm telling you it's a bad idea. Whereas you're you're going to leave that home, you might interact with that client. But in 10 years from now, you're not going to be seeing what's actually happening. So I can't tell you how many decks we replace on very fancy custom homes where I'm not saying this is you, but drywall screws were used to put in the joystick. Sure nobody knew, because there's a ceiling and a porch and it's all hidden covered. It's all hidden covered and nothing. Obviously you can't use drywall screws to build a deck, but you know, the deck was built, well, it just wasn't built by a deck builder. So, yeah,
Mark D. Williams 06:49
specificity. All right, let's get to some of these loss lessons. What are some things that you've learned? I mean, even the transition between cabinet shop to, you know, the decking is interesting, too. That
Josh Ferri 06:59
was interesting, but it wasn't a huge hurdle. The the biggest lesson for me was, was hiring. I would say it's when I came out of school college, I had a mentor who who taught me a lot about hiring, but one thing that stuck with me was that he likes to hire for character and train for skill. And I took that was a great lesson, except I turned took the wrong lesson from that. I took the find people you like and then train them for skill. The problem is, if you hire for character, and they don't have this, they don't have the character that could also build the skill, then you've just hired a bunch of friends, and that's awesome. So last year, we were on a big growth trajectory. You know, we're we were really coming to our own with our reputation and and the the clientele that we were wanting to service. And I was like, oh, we need to get I need a project manager. I need a project coordinator. We've got multiple projects going on at one time and and, you know, I've got to stop doing all the sales and other things. So I hired people, and they were good people. They just weren't I didn't prepare them well enough. It really falls back on me. As you know, a lot of the losses can be pointed back as us as owners, and thinking we can do it all. My main problem was that I didn't set them up for success. I viewed it as, oh, this person's doing a job that I no longer have to do, and now I can go do blank. So now we're back into a growth trajectory. We we've worked. We got rid of those people. We need to hire again, and we're taking it much slower. We've learned a lot from those lessons, as far as not only who to look for, but how to set them up for success. We belong to a business coaching program called Legacy Dex Academy, which we actually me and Allison just got back from the our quarterly with them, and the only question I was asking people is, how did you set your Pm up for success? Because I'm not going to make that mistake twice. So how
Mark D. Williams 08:49
big is the company now in terms of people?
Josh Ferri 08:51
So right now, standing in this room is 50% of us,
Mark D. Williams 08:54
okay,
Josh Ferri 08:55
yeah, so there's only four of us on staff. We have, we have four crews. My dad operates as our fractional CFO. But yeah, people that come into the office for
Mark D. Williams 09:05
Yep, and so, and then are you doing? Are you subcontracting, then all the labor? Or is it into labor in
Josh Ferri 09:10
house? So it's 1099, but it's all in house. They're, you know, Lakeside decking guys, Lakeside decking shirts, stuff like that.
Mark D. Williams 09:16
Yep. The reason I ask is just like, I mean, I've, I think every homeowner, or every homeowner, every owner, has had similar issues with scaling and going forward and then two steps back. And yeah, you know, right now, I don't know if you've gotten there yet, but like, what is your interview process?
Josh Ferri 09:31
So our,
Mark D. Williams 09:32
how
Mark D. Williams 09:33
does it change? I should probably
Josh Ferri 09:35
so our interview process before was, how quickly can we interview and how quickly can we fill a seat? I Allison, who is my who is my admin and my integrator. She was the first person I hired for her role, and the only person I offered the job to. I canceled all the other interviews, and it worked out perfectly. I had a gut feeling, and I was like, you're the one. Let's do this. Didn't work out so well with Project Manager. So the. So this time before, we interviewed five or six people or whatever, but this time, I did a hiring funnel, which was, you know, it was a, there was a job description, but at the bottom of the job description, it said, You will not be considered for this position if you don't send in a video saying why you want the role and what other question. But you had to read the whole thing before you got there. Have a curious seven applicants, and only seven people sent in the way the video. So that was made my job a lot easier. I only have to focus on seven people, because if you don't read the whole thing
Mark D. Williams 10:32
right,
Josh Ferri 10:33
then I can't expect you to read plans. Ian, so then the people who sent in the video there, I was a little more judgmental. As far as like, can I see this person working here? Do I feel like they're going to be a good culture for culture fit the the skilled test is already done, as far as like, good enough to interview, they've they've sent in the video. But just because you can send in a video doesn't mean you can talk to clients. And that's what I was really looking for in the video, was, can I see you talking to clients? Because when something goes wrong and it will, it's construction, I need you to be able to deliver really bad news that. And then from there, I narrowed down to four people. We interviewed four. We're doing a second round on two tomorrow, actually, and then we'll see
Mark D. Williams 11:12
will be the two of you interviewing them jointly, or how do you do your so final interviews. First
Josh Ferri 11:17
interview is me and Allison. Second interview is Carlos, my designer and Nick, my sales guy, and then we're gonna compare notes inside.
Mark D. Williams 11:24
Yeah. I mean, I think that's great. I love the stories that about the sales funnel. I've heard that recently about the video we've just recently, only because it's fun. Have you gotten into, like, personality tests or anything like that?
Josh Ferri 11:34
Yes, we're big into that. Like, what is it? Colby? Yeah, the Colby. And then there is, yeah, Enneagram,
Mark D. Williams 11:42
yeah,
Josh Ferri 11:43
yeah. And we, we even went as far as, like, creating a list of, like, here's how Josh and Carlos should communicate, here's how Josh and Nick shouldn't communicate, here's how Nick and Carla should communicate. Do we look at it all the time, but it's there.
Mark D. Williams 11:58
Well, it's funny you say that. So I have a team of five right now, and we just did it. There's one of our potential future sponsors for the contractor coalition Summit, which is gonna be out in Denver here by the time this airs probably within a week of it. But they do it for all of their hires, and I think it's great. I love understanding. I've always have done these in the past with my team. It's hard to know what to do with the information. Yeah, like, it's very accurate. You're like, Wow, I feel like I'm reading a horoscope that's like, oddly specific to me. Like, this is crazy, and it's cool that any one company like we did the DISC assessment a few years ago. We've got the red, yellow, blue and green, and as a team, we actually were equally distributed in all four quadrants, which is, that's super healthy, but then what do you do you do with it? Exactly, that's always been my hang up, like, what do you do with it? And so it'll be interesting to see working with this company is like, how do they train, how they integrate with it, and the way they want us to use it is, I would actually have you as if you're my subcontractor on my decks. You know, moving forward, it'd be like, I would interview a you take it. Your people would take it, yeah? Everyone. You can go up to like, 2000 people, yeah, and so. And then they kind of counsel you and like, how to utilize it, because that's always been the hang up and like, yeah, what
Josh Ferri 13:10
do you do with this? Well, because it's somewhat like, I also take a little bit of grain of salt, because it's somewhat like a horoscope where you're reading it, you're like, you're right. I do do that, but you don't. You're like, you you think you do it. But also, yeah, it's like, All right, great. Now I just need to type this into chat GBT and find out what to do with it because, but yeah, it does help, because what I look for is how to communicate with that person. You know, if that person doesn't do well over text or needs a lot of visuals. So one of the questions I ask when I'm interviewing people is, how do you learn? Are you visual audio? You gotta, you gotta try it once, mess it up. Try it again. What do you how do you learn? And that tells me a lot about how I should structure their onboarding, because if I just sit them in front of a computer, but they're a hands on person, they're gonna have a terrible onboarding.
Mark D. Williams 13:58
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. I
Mark D. Williams 14:46
don't
Mark D. Williams 14:48
think anyone ever gets it 100% right, even if you do all this stuff, if you had and there are very talented companies that help you source people, and it's probably better than not. But like with Allison, you lightening a bottle, you made the right decision. And she ended up being the right decision. And so I felt very much that way too. I've had, I think, five or six controllers in my 22 year career, and I've had three stellar ones, too average and too poor, yeah, and so, but the point in bringing it up is I decided recently, probably about two years ago, that I will never interview or I'll never I'll actually never hire someone else in my career. Me personally, our company will obviously continue to hire people to hire people, yeah, but I just find that I'm a little bit more to I'm like a dog at a dog park. I haven't met a dog I don't want to chase the ball with, right? And so it's like I am just it makes me great at remodeling, makes me good at sales, makes me good at connecting with people, makes me terrible. Might
Mark D. Williams 15:36
be a
Josh Ferri 15:36
bad hire,
Mark D. Williams 15:36
yeah? I
Mark D. Williams 15:37
mean, it just so the other thing too is like, you're so excited when you're so excited when you're if you're done this, when you're interviewing people, you basically are telling them all the things to tell you back, yeah? And then they do, and you're like, This guy's amazing,
Josh Ferri 15:47
yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so I did where we do, like, technological advances at our company, we we spent a lot of time working with Claude on creating actual questions based on the troubles we've had before, how to suss out those from from the interviewee, and then also taking their their resume, creating questions that fit our core values. Because if you're not a core value fit, then it doesn't matter if you're not a driven learner and doer, which is our first core value. Are you gonna Are you gonna when all new railing comes out? Are you gonna be like, No, I just, I want to work with the railing that we have right now. Or you can be like, Yeah, let's learn about the new railing and figure out how to install it. I So we used Claude to help us create interview questions that both sussed out the problems and figured out whether or not they were going to be a good culture fit.
Mark D. Williams 16:36
What are some, if you think back in your career here, what are some either financial mistakes that you've made, or literally building mistakes. I mean, I'm just thinking of, like, I mean, the railings are no jokes, right? There's some serious life safety stuff here. I'm thinking like a second or third, you know, someone leans in the day,
Mark D. Williams 16:50
yeah,
Mark D. Williams 16:51
the railing falls off. Like, we're talking about some pretty serious liability
Josh Ferri 16:54
here. Well, we, we do have a philosophy that we tell us to our clients, bold face, I never want to see you again. If I see you again, we have a problem. Like, I'm not in the service sales line. I'm not in the service my my sales guy, Nick, he actually owned a decking company before he came to work with me. We've been friends for a very long time. And he says it also, we just believe it, if I see you again, we have a problem. I'm not a plumber. We don't we. There's no service contract here. So my guys know that wherever you could use a one and a half inch screw, you should use a three inch screw, so we never have to come back stuff like that, the biggest, you name it. There's a financial mistake there. I bought a $5,000 forklift. I'll face marketplace. How'd
Mark D. Williams 17:33
that go?
Josh Ferri 17:33
We work. We use it. It's pretty cool, but it's piece of crap. I bought a trailer at an auction from the City of Minneapolis, and it's a piece of crap. There's just, there hasn't been any that were like, you know, obviously, the the same mistakes any builder gets into when you're when all of a sudden you're getting checks for $21,000 and stuff like that. You you have the money to pay for the materials, and you're like, oh, man, we can get a couple of new drills here. And, you know, and you're just spending your profit early. That's probably the biggest mistake. Now we utilize the system, if you're familiar, Profit First for contracts. Oh, yeah, yeah. So we do that good for you. Man,
Mark D. Williams 18:10
that's impressive.
Josh Ferri 18:10
Yeah, we have, you know, our expense account, our income account, our client account, our taxes and our so for those that haven't
Mark D. Williams 18:16
listened to it, Michael mccallawitt has a book called Profit First. They have a profit first for contractors specifically,
Mark D. Williams 18:21
right? I
Mark D. Williams 18:21
actually haven't. I should read that. Should read that one. When did you how many years in business were you before you read that book and then? Or how did you hear about it like
Josh Ferri 18:29
so when I was building the business and I switched over to Lakeside decking, my dad has been in business for a very long time. He's very savvy with with money and all those things and but after a while, it got to the point where he was like, I can give you as much advice as you want. You want, but I have no idea how to run a crew. I own a software company. I don't, I don't know what screws you should use on this, you know. So I was like, Okay, I need external help. And that's when I went down the business coach route. And one of the first things my business coach did was, his name is Chris. He said he actually almost didn't let me in. He was like, you're almost too new. Like, you need to fail
Mark D. Williams 19:00
a few times. Fail
Josh Ferri 19:00
a few times. But he was like, here's a list of things you can do, and then I'll decide. And so I was like, okay, and I'm a very fast reader, so I read all three books, and then figured out the debt situation with my Lumberyard at that at that moment, at that point. And one of the books was Profit First, yeah. So I implemented it very early. And then I actually, when my dad became our fractional CFO, I made him read it also. I was like, You got we got we got to speak in the same language, because banking accounts for a software company very different than how contractors have to use it. Because, unfortunately, contractors are not known for good financial No, I
Mark D. Williams 19:33
think there's so much opportunities. One of the things that we try to do on the show a lot. I mean, I didn't know the difference between markup and margin till you're 18. That's shocking. I've left millions of dollars on the table, and the reason I talk about it so often is to remove the stigma. Because we're, we are a very successful high end company, like, I would like to think, like our brand is well known, yeah, but like, I make that mistake. I don't want lack of information or lack of education to be the reason why, because we all work too hard. Yeah. We try to do such a good job for our clients that not knowing the difference shouldn't be whether you make it or not, yeah. And so I was fortunate enough that we were able to make it even though I didn't know that. I mean, for those that don't know the difference, go, look it up, but it's about 2% and if you, if, I mean just, you can do the math. I mean, if you, let's say you did 20 million, 100 million. I mean, think of how many 2% it starts to add up a lot, yeah. And
Mark D. Williams 20:22
so
Josh Ferri 20:23
that quickly you're
Mark D. Williams 20:24
Yeah. I mean, ultimately, as soon as you understand what you're worth, and it's about value, really, and does your client like, I love the line. I would What did your client say when you look at him? Ian say, I never want to see you again.
Josh Ferri 20:36
And you say, chuckle. And I say, it is like, Listen, I'm just gonna be honest with I never want to see you again. Like, I say it like that.
Mark D. Williams 20:41
I'd love to hear
Josh Ferri 20:42
but there's one other thing that we tell our clients. When they say, like, Oh, you're more expensive than the next guy, or whatever that may be. We tell them, Okay, listen, I know my numbers. I'm I know my numbers really well. Is the first thing we do January 1 every year, set the budget, find our markup, find our margin. What's that going to be? In fact, I use the line like I know what my markup is, so I can hit this margin, and I use them both in the same sentence, like last week, and that was the first time. So it takes, yeah, it takes a while to get used to it, but we tell our clients is, I have to charge this much so that in 10 years, when a railing comes loose, your uncle's drunk and hits it and it's the panel's rattling you, call me and the laundromat doesn't answer because I didn't charge you properly, and now I'm out of business. So there's a lot of contractors out there who you're never going to hear from them again in the wrong
Mark D. Williams 21:30
way.
Josh Ferri 21:30
I never want to see you again. I never want to hear from you again unless you're unless you're referring maybe we can have a beer or something like that. But if I do, I want you to be able to get hold of me, but if I don't charge you properly, you won't be able to
Mark D. Williams 21:42
I think that's very well said. I mean, something that comes across very clearly in just talking with you is how competent and how accurate you are. Thank you. And just like your personality, even if I didn't know that, I would just be like, this is somebody I trust who's got their stuff together. Yeah, I think that's what's unique. Specifically, is your particular niche of construction, you know, being decking, although it expands to a lot of other things, people probably aren't. Aren't used to that level of specificity or that level of professionalism. I mean, they hardly expect it from our industry, period. Yeah. I certainly imagine that if I'm building someone a five to $10 million house, they certainly expect it out of me, yeah, but I can tell you that a lot of my peers don't do it either well. And so, like, if you're, you know, I'm saying, like, yeah, just because something is smaller doesn't mean it can't be run more efficiently,
Josh Ferri 22:25
absolutely. But also, if I, if I went out your door right now and I threw a rock, I'll hit four deck builders. So it's and of those four deck builders, there's six different opinions. So it, there's a lot of us. So it can be very difficult to carve your name out. But I've also been finding recently is that a lot of our clients, when I'm getting feedback from Nick, the reason that he's winning against five other bids is because they he's telling them what they need to hear, not what they want to hear. And he's telling them he's giving them value, and he's making them realize, here's why, $10,000 less than what I'm talking about doesn't make any sense. Who's $10,000 coming out of your pocket or theirs? Promise you, it's not theirs. But what we're finding is a lot of clients are more on social media, or they're they're watching the news. They heard about Roscoe, they heard about, you know, whatever, and they're much more wary of the lower bid these days, much more wary because they have just heard so many times either, either we're getting more millennial clients, or we're getting or whatever that may be, where they've heard about their neighbor having a tragic story with a with a contractor who took their money and ran and they're really trying to avoid that. Now, there's still a lot of deck builders out there, so it can be really hard to get above the fold, but it's actually becoming, I don't want to jinx it, you know, knock on wood. It's becoming easier to sell a more expensive product, if you have, if you can back it up.
Mark D. Williams 23:50
I think it's all about value proposition and storytelling. I think the more effective we can share our story and what we believe in, yeah, Ian, people give you a small amount of time. Where are you getting most of your leads from? Is that coming from direct mailers, word of mouth, social media?
Josh Ferri 24:05
Yeah, no, most of our leads are still going to be honestly SEO. Alison rebuilt our website, and it's fantastic. And then Google and Facebook advertising, yeah, mailers have never worked for us, and one thing that's been very good for us is home shows, but not the Home and Garden Show. Nothing's wrong with it. It just it's downtown. A lot of people from the west metro are not going to it. So maybe when we get bigger and we're trying to service a larger area, might make more sense, but but smaller home shows, the Eden Prairie Home Show, or the Maple Grove Home Show, or the will do Apple days this year in Excelsior. We'll also do art on the lake, and those are amazing for us.
Mark D. Williams 24:43
I think what's so cool about your profession specifically is it's a little bit like quantity. I probably do four to five projects a year, and it takes me several years, if not longer, to get those clientele right. I don't know what percentage of homes have a deck, but let's just say a lot of. Yeah, 60 seconds. It's a
Josh Ferri 25:01
crude joke, but I'm making it like crack houses in Minnesota. Yeah, they all do. But to your point, we were definitely not a volume builder. We so you can, there's pros and cons, but you can follow two different business styles and deck building. You can file production or you can file custom. It almost depends on where you're at. When I got into this business, I set up on Wayzata, and I was like, okay, doors are open. Who needs a deck? Just based on the fact that I was in wise I was around the lake, I was getting a lot more of these larger projects, so I kind of fell into that side of the business. And we're not super competitive in the in product, smaller production style decks, not that anything's wrong with them, but the we realized to service that the higher end clientele we needed to offer X number of services, we needed to what we call our white glove deck building service. And there was a premium for that, that we just ended up not being super competitive in the in the smaller space. But that's why I bring it back to my other point. We're starting to be really competitive, not competitive, but we're starting to get these smaller decks, because even if it's only a $35,000 deck, and the other guy was bidding you at 20 like
Mark D. Williams 26:07
people, people also want to know who they can refer. I would imagine real estate agents would actually be a very viable future source, just from the standpoint that you know, if someone wants a custom home or a remodel of certain like, even us, like, we have limits on how low we can go on a remodel, right? Yeah. And so I actually refer a lot of remodel work to people in our curious builder builder collectives, just because I'd rather give it to someone I know will do a good job. And there are certain people that can just do really good job. I mean, even by coming on the show, it's like a not only, I get a price you out on some of our jobs going forward, because, like, hey, to your point, specificity. In order to know what I'm doing with my sauna, why would I do with that decking as well if it's something that we do? But even if I didn't, having a good recommendation is very valuable. Yeah, and so,
Josh Ferri 26:52
and what we're will, real estate agents can be good if they're, you know, front of mind, thinking about it. But a lot, unfortunately, a lot of the times when selling a home, everyone's so focused on the interior, they're like, I can always build the deck later. And they buy this home. It was built in the 70s. It cost $150 to put the deck on, and it was 1000 square feet. Now that decks $150,000 and they that the real estate agent doesn't realize it, the the buyers don't realize like, they put that deck up in 1970 and it cost them 1500 bucks. So what we're finding is that they're not, it's not that they're not taking the outdoor living seriously. It's they're just not thinking about
Mark D. Williams 27:30
it up front. And then it can be the same thing with custom home builds, where they'll they we do a lot of louvered pergolas. For instance, we'll get calls from from custom home builders like, hey, we want to put this louver per go up. And even they fall into this trap where they're like, I just saw it at Costco for $1,800 What do you mean? It's a $45,000 louver pergola. Good luck with the Costco one. You're calling me in two weeks. But what we're we're just not I'm still trying to figure out a way to get front of mind with those people, with those builders. I think it becomes a priority thing. I mean, I think we saw that for years in landscaping, when I would do a custom home design for a client focused on interior, overall, things that you know you can't change later. And it used to always be that landscape was one of the first things to get cut because they they always said, Well, I can do it later. Or, like, even we used to haven't done it now in a decade, we used to leave basements unfinished because we could do it later. Yeah, it speaks a little bit to a price point. It also speaks to a different type of clientele. But I think as architecture becomes more and more important, I found that even now I work with landscape architects, yeah, and design loves design. Architects love architects. And so I didn't realize how valuable it was, but like a good, high end residential architect loves landscape architects because the landscape helps reinforce the architecture of the home and the outdoor living. You know, we don't have as long a season in Minnesota as we do another right? You've got four or five months to really enjoy it, and so you really want to make that space super valuable, absolutely, especially as we sort of design inside out and outside in. Like, how do we get outside of the home and enjoy these beautiful days like we're having today.
Josh Ferri 29:03
Yeah, and what I find with landscape architects is they're kind of in that same boat where they they're starting to realize all the cool things you can do outside, but they're still very focused on plants, lights and pavers. And it's like, okay, what are and outdoor kitchens? But it's like, Okay, what about a louvered pergola? What about a detached pavilion? Or what about, like, all these different things that you can do now that they're just especially with the louver pergolas, they're still so new construction. Everybody takes 20 years to get with the program, but getting front of mind with those people as well is going to be super critical for us as we go forward, just letting them know what's even possible. Yeah, last
Mark D. Williams 29:40
question here, we're a little over on time, but it's a good conversation. What is one thing that you've taken with you from your cabinet shop, but you just have a very unique path, you know, from cabinet shop into outdoor living spaces and your decking. What is something that you feel like the cabinet world helped you and sort of helped set you apart in what you're doing now? Yeah, probably precision, but also technology. So I very quickly was like, if I'm going to set up a cabinet shop, and it's just going to be me and maybe one other guy, like, I want a CNC machine. I want the tools to make me be able to make really good products at a reasonable rate. I knew I was never going to be like a production cabinet builder, but I very early, I got a CNC machine. So that's just an example of of I wanted to us to be very technology driven in our deck building as well. So, so like the plans that I give to my crews,
Josh Ferri 30:30
for instance, they're three dimensional plans. They're not just flat plan. I'm trying to give them all the tools they need to build this $150,000 backyard that we just sold and have it come out correct. I
Mark D. Williams 30:40
think that's what AI does really well, too. On top of, you know, with the rendering technology of what your actual base technology of, you know, CNC machines and CAD drawings and things like that, but sharing the vision, yeah, with what you're going to do helps everyone get on board with what you are doing. And not only from a selling standpoint, of course, for the clients, but, you know, we often forget, I don't think we have to sell our people, but if, especially if you're creative and it's in your head, how do you share that vision with not only your employees, like you talked about in the beginning of like you want to make sure that the right culture fit. But honestly, what are we doing this together and also getting their buy in? They're going to bring forward ideas too.
Josh Ferri 31:14
Yeah, we actually the way our sales process works. I know we're over on time, but we do a consult, we present an estimate. We don't send them. Nobody's getting emails these days. You're coming to our showroom and we're if you're not bought in, then we're not working together. Because it
Mark D. Williams 31:27
love that, I love that I don't
Josh Ferri 31:28
know what I can do for you. If you're just like, send me an email along with six other guys, just in the space that we're in. It just it doesn't work out well. Anybody who wants to move forward does it, what we call a planning and design phase. We won't take any thing from you other than $750 to do a design, a rendering, a plan. I want to know how many screws I need on this project. I want to know how many steps. That's
Mark D. Williams 31:47
your pre construction agreement, basically,
Josh Ferri 31:49
pretty much, yeah, but we've had clients come to us, been like, listen, the deck is 12 by 12 is right outside. And we're like, No, we're doing this because there's no way you're coming to me later and saying, I don't know that's what it was gonna look like. Yeah, you do. Because
Mark D. Williams 32:00
of
Mark D. Williams 32:01
mine.
Josh Ferri 32:01
The renderings are in your contract, so I love that. Yeah,
Mark D. Williams 32:04
it also weeds out the people you don't want to work with immediately.
Josh Ferri 32:07
Yeah? Because
Mark D. Williams 32:07
if
Mark D. Williams 32:07
they're not willing to pay 750 they're not gonna spend 30,000 on a new deck.
Josh Ferri 32:11
Yeah, exactly. And the 750 comes off of 30,000 so it's not like it's kind of a win win for everybody. And if you want to, you can take that and go get proper quotes from everybody.
Mark D. Williams 32:20
Yeah. Okay, done, right? Yeah. Well, thanks for coming on the podcast. I appreciate it, and thanks for the insight.
Josh Ferri 32:25
Sure, this was fun.
Mark D. Williams 32:26
All right, every Mondays and Thursdays, curious builder, tell your friends and check out Lakeside decking.
Mark D. Williams 32:32
Thanks for
Mark D. Williams 32:33
tuning in the 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.
This episode is sponsored by:
