Live from Buildertrend University: NS Builders

Show Notes

The Building Code is live from Buildertrend University with NS Builders’ Nick Schiffer.

While you may already “know” him from Instagram, we really got to know Nick. How did he get his start? After working for his father and for a high-rise construction company, plus taking on a lot of side work – he decided to start NS Builders on his own. In 2014, the company was started … with Nick (NS) himself as the sole employee. After doing an entire renovation by himself and working seven days a week, he knew he could only go up from there. For the first two years of business, he continued to take on whatever jobs he could with help from friends and family. From that point, he started hiring more team members and the ball really started rolling.

Around the same time that he founded NS Builders, Nick also started his Instagram account (and, other social platforms). Once he started sharing the work he was doing, Nick made one promise to himself: to just be consistent in his posting and always share what NS Builders was up to (and spoiler alert: it worked). After some time, he began receiving messages about the work he was doing and people wanted to chat about it, and he knew immediately that it was worth the time he was putting in. So, he upped his game even further to include more of the “why” NS Builders was doing the work and having meaningful conversations with people.

And now? NS Builders gets most of its business through social media; and if they don’t come directly from social media, it’s used as the final piece of the puzzle to encourage homeowners to choose them as their builder.

When it comes to the people of the NS Builders team, it’s obviously not just Nick anymore. He’s grown his team to over 15 people, and we’ll give you one guess as to how they came to work for him … through social media. Thirteen of those came through Instagram, either through finding Nick’s profile organically, responding to ads or through Nick finding them on his own. Amazing, right?

From a relentless focus on high-quality work to all things attitude, you don’t want to miss everything else we discussed with Nick Schiffer on this episode.

NS Builders
NS Builders on Instagram
NS Builders YouTube
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The Modern Craftsman on Instagram
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Transcript

Tom Houghton:

You’re listening to “The Building Code.” I’m Tom Houghton.

Paul Wurth:

I’m Paul Wurth.

Tom Houghton:

Today’s episode, we’re recording live from our May Buildertrend University session. We have over 70 attendees from 18 different states, and 3 different countries. I’ll introduce our guest for this episode in just one second, but want to make a quick note to all of our listeners. We have a great deal for our June 2019 Buildertrend University. You can buy two tickets and get one free.

Tom Houghton:

This is a great opportunity for your team to learn more about Buildertrend. Our June Buildertrend University is on June 19th and 20th in Omaha, Nebraska. All you have to do to sign up is just go to the show notes page at buildertrend.com/podcast. Click on the link there to register for BTU, and make sure you mention the podcast when you register.

Tom Houghton:

Our guest today is Nick Schiffer, owner of NS Builders. You can find him in Instagram @nsbuilders. You can also see his work on YouTube as well. We’re going to dive right into our conversation with Nick.

Tom Houghton:

I think what would be beneficial to our listeners is, talk about your growth, because obviously, start about yourself, and then, now you’ve got 15 employees. You’ve got a massive following on Instagram, doing stuff on YouTube, building a great product. Talk us through that journey.

Nick Schiffer:

So we’re actually only in our fifth year, and I started … So what’s that? 2014, I started it, and it was just me. I had my brother and my cousin helping as a helper, but I just went right into being a … I should say I always did side work. I worked for my father for 11 years, I went and built as an assistant project manager in high-rise construction, and I was doing carpentry projects on the side forever to a point where it was getting overwhelming.

Nick Schiffer:

I was balancing between 50 hours at my full-time job, and 40 to 60 hours on the side, while trying to date my now wife, which probably would have broke up with me if I continued that.

Paul Wurth:

So side projects is knocking out built-ins?

Nick Schiffer:

Sure. Built-ins or installing some crown molding. I built sheds for a long time. I was shed boy in high school. But when I was in the high-rise job, I decided that I was just going to leave and start my own thing. That was where my passion was. I wanted to control it. I knew I could put a better product out there than building a high rise with cheap finishes in it, right?

Nick Schiffer:

And when I left, the architect of that high rise actually … We became very close and he really respected who I was as a project manager, and we worked well together. Long story short, he was like, “Listen, I’m buying a house. I’d love to renovate it. If you’re interested in the job, you have the job. Let’s chat.” So, I left and I gut renovated a house by myself.

Nick Schiffer:

I don’t even remember what the schedule was on it, but I know I didn’t meet it. I was working seven days a week, like 6 a.m. until 8 p.m., just killing it, and renovated the whole house and it just kind of stemmed from there. I knew that I wanted to do bigger projects.

Nick Schiffer:

And for, probably, I want to say two years, my math is probably a little bit off, but for two years I would take one miscellaneous anything, building a curved deck, or a bathroom or a kitchen, doing some interior trim, just whatever I could to just do what I loved.

Nick Schiffer:

And finally, I had hired friends at this point. Ultimately, I end up letting all my friends and family go because it just wasn’t a good dynamic for us. And I hired my first real employee, I say, which is Mike, who’s still with me, and he was the first actual carpenter. When I hired him, I realized that I can focus on the business.

Nick Schiffer:

And Mike started working with, at the time, my friend, and then I hired another carpenter, and then started realizing that I was going to start building this team, and quickly realized that I’m going to pull myself out of the field, and I’m going to basically encourage them to take the reins and produce the quality and the product that I once was. And at the time, I was like, “I can do it better than them.” Now, they all can do it better than me.

Nick Schiffer:

And maybe it wasn’t necessarily better, but it was my way. And training them to, “Hey, this is what I was doing, but I want you to improve upon that.” And realizing that trying to build a business, building cabinetry at night, renovating during the day, I was putting 70% effort in all of those instead of just 100% effort into the business.

Nick Schiffer:

So early on, I actually started using social media for just sharing what I was doing, like, “Hey, this is a good avenue. It’s free. I’m going to put my stuff out there.” And I built this curved deck. It was just me with a helper, and I built this curved deck.

Nick Schiffer:

And I remember someone reaching out and saying, “Hey, I would love to chat with you. Saw the stuff that you build on Instagram. This is really cool.” Immediately, I was like, “Okay. This is something. It’s happening.” I mean, this was two years ago, three years ago.

Paul Wurth:

Social media being just Instagram? Was that your platform?

Nick Schiffer:

Yeah. And I would share it back to Facebook, but Facebook was my friends and family saw it. They’re like, “Cool, Nick. Another deck. Another renovation project. Whatever.” But Instagram, I was just soaking in as much connecting with people and chatting. And I just started putting all my effort into it, and really, I wouldn’t say studying, but paying attention to content creators, and understanding what this approach needed to be.

Nick Schiffer:

Nothing formal, not understanding the algorithms ever. I never cared about that. I was just like, “I’m going to be consistent. I’m just going to always post and always put my product out there.” And my wife and I got married, and our photographer …

Nick Schiffer:

I was like, “What do you do during the week?” He was like, “Well, I edit photos and stuff.” I’m like, “Would you want to shoot one of my projects?” He’s like, “Yeah, sure.” So he came out, shot it, and I was like, “This is cool.” Now, these are professional photos showing what we’re doing in motion, and the details, and getting better photos. And then I started sharing those.

Nick Schiffer:

And then I was like, “All right. I need to elaborate on this, like what we’re doing, but what we’re doing it. Why did we do it that way,” right? And I just stayed very consistent with it, and just always posted, and always communicated, and tried to have conversations with people that were on that platform.

Nick Schiffer:

And it, time and time again, just proved to be a worthwhile investment of my time to the point now, where it’s solely how we’re getting business. And if they’re not coming through Instagram, they are solidifying us after our initial conversation by finding us on social media, by saying, “Hey, after we met, I’ve checked you out on Instagram. This is amazing. Let’s do it. Let’s do the project.”

Paul Wurth:

Have you ever done the math? So let’s take it five years back. What do you think a small business in construction spend on marketing? Tradition platforms, pay-per-click, even newspaper, what do you think-

Nick Schiffer:

What do I think?

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. What do you think a business-

Nick Schiffer:

See, I don’t know, but $50,000 plus.

Paul Wurth:

Right. So let’s just say it’s that.

Nick Schiffer:

Yeah. Or maybe not a small business. The bigger builders in Boston, yeah. People like that, I’m competing with.

Paul Wurth:

Your competitors.

Nick Schiffer:

Using air quotes.

Paul Wurth:

On air. So they’re probably still doing that, and you’re putting that $50,000 … I mean, it’s your time for sure, but you’re not spending that money?

Nick Schiffer:

Right. So I think it was 2017, I think, is the year. I spent all my profits on marketing. And we took all the projects that we were doing, realizing that, “These projects are cool, but this isn’t what we want to build. So let’s take the money that we’re going to make on these projects, and put it back into the project, and make it cooler.” And it wasn’t that formal. It just kind of ended up that way.

Tom Houghton:

It just happened.

Nick Schiffer:

But we did that, and it was like, “That is dope.” And I look at it, I’m like, “Yeah, only because they got a killer deal and we over invested on their project in hopes to sell it at the price it should be the next year.” And we did that over a handful of projects, and we’ll do that in a lot of our projects.

Nick Schiffer:

We’ll pick an area that like, “Hey, let’s make this better.” We’re like, “Hey, renovating the whole house and we’re leaving that room. Screw it. We’ll pay for it, we’ll strip that room, and we’ll do that room too. But it was those little things that allowed us to promote a better product than we were in the market with already, and allowing us to take the next step.

Nick Schiffer:

But magazines, they were all day, “Nick, full-page ad. $3,800 for one magazine.” So it got to a point where it became so annoying that I was like, “You know what? Now, I want to prove to them that I’m not going to spend any money on marketing, and I’m going to blow everyone out of the water.”

Nick Schiffer:

Now, I get all these bigger builders that I’m … again, air quoting … competing with in Boston, they do great work. A lot of them, I would say, way above the level that we do, some of them, at the same level, and some way below. But they’re late to the social media game.

Nick Schiffer:

And they have someone running their social media very much just like, “Look at the pretty bathroom we did.” And they’re reaching out to me, “Hey, can we grab coffee?” “Sure. What’s up?” “Well, I just want to understand the secrets behind social …” I’m like, “Just post all the time, and talk, and communicate, and explain the value that you bring.”

Nick Schiffer:

“I understand, but …” I’m like, “Okay, you don’t understand. It’s very simple.” We post a lot of final photos because people want to know what it looks like, but we’re also not posting it saying, “Look at the pretty bathroom.” It’s like, “Hey, check out the tile. This is how we installed it because this is the best method” or, “You’ll never believe that this vanity is blah, blah, blah.”

Tom Houghton:

It’s the behind the scenes of it that you’re selling a little bit more.

Nick Schiffer:

Right, and then as Instagram evolved, we started using the Story function. Actually, it was Snapchat first. I went to Snapchat and I started Storying everything I was doing, and Gary Vaynerchuk became a huge … He started getting very big, and I was obsessed with the way he was producing his content.

Nick Schiffer:

So I was like, “I’m doing this. He’s doing Stories. I’ll do Stories, and I’ll talk about what I do all over Snapchat.” And then Instagram got Stories, and I’m like, “Now, I’m on Instagram.” And that’s what people love to see. I had a client hire us because she wanted to watch her renovation unfold on our Stories.

Paul Wurth:

That’s amazing.

Nick Schiffer:

She was like, “It’s just going to be so cool. I’m going to be at work, and you’re going to be at my house, seeing this unfold.”

Paul Wurth:

That’s really important. I have so many-

Tom Houghton:

It feels like 2019 to me.

Paul Wurth:

Every time you go on that five-minute whatever you just … story you tell, I got a lot. I got like five questions. I think our listeners would love to hear … We talk about the leap a lot. We talk about, “Why did you start your own business?” That’s a crazy leap.

Nick Schiffer:

Just quality.

Paul Wurth:

But in terms of your transparency, I want to know. You were doing high rises. You don’t have to get into specifics. Did you have money saved?

Nick Schiffer:

Nope.

Paul Wurth:

Did you have a net? How do you-

Nick Schiffer:

I’ll tell you exactly-

Paul Wurth:

How do you go into business?

Nick Schiffer:

I’ll tell you that … Because everything, all those years since I was a child, I bought everything … I owned all my tools. I didn’t go out and take a loan. The only loan I had was my truck. So with that being said, I made a great salary at my job.

Nick Schiffer:

I found out that I was probably overpaid by other builders that were trying to hire … or other project management companies trying to hire me. And my bonus structure was unreal. I could make up to 40% of my salary a year. And I was like, “You know what? It’s not about the money. I want to do what I love.”

Paul Wurth:

So knowing that, why even think about leaving, right? Because you had to?

Nick Schiffer:

I think it was definitely quality.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah, there’s something inside.

Nick Schiffer:

It was cool to see a high rise go up, but at the end of the day, it was like, “Yeah, it’s a puzzle. That’s it.” I couldn’t control what it looked like. I was just controlling data. So it was really, I just wanted to do something that I love. I tell this story a lot.

Nick Schiffer:

I put my notice in on December 1st, and I said, “I’ll give them a month,” because I knew I was the only … I was assistant product manager, it was a $180 million high-rise, and my PM was in New York. So I was eyes and ears every single day.

Nick Schiffer:

So I knew if I left, someone was going to have to fill my shoes, and they weren’t going to do it on Christmas. So I was like, “I’ll give til January 1st.” I was offered, if I remember right, I think, $30 grand on spot to stay another 90 days.

Paul Wurth:

Right, and there’s no way you turned that down, right?

Nick Schiffer:

I called my wife, I called my father, and they’re like, “Listen, dude, hear me out. It makes sense to take it because you’ll just start your business in 90 days and you’ll be fine.” And I went in and I said, “No.” And they were like-

Paul Wurth:

I’m not trying to be over exaggerating. That’s wild. How old were you?

Nick Schiffer:

25?

Paul Wurth:

No, there’s no way you did that.

Nick Schiffer:

Swear to … Hear me out.

Paul Wurth:

That’s crazy.

Nick Schiffer:

You know why? I was like, “Because in 90 days, that $30 grand’s a drop in the bucket. They’ll offer it to me again.”

Paul Wurth:

Oh, I see. So you just-

Nick Schiffer:

I was like, “It’s not … If I want $30,000, then I’ll go bust my ass for 3 months and get it.” Again, I’m not trying to be a business coach, but it didn’t make sense to me. I’m so glad I did. It’s funny, because I always tell this story. I went back and they hired three people to do what I was doing. I was like, “I hate you guys.”

Paul Wurth:

Well, they knew it. Yeah, I mean, obviously they knew that they couldn’t-

Nick Schiffer:

But here’s my crutch, right? My crutch was, when I explained where I was going, and that I wasn’t going to work for a competitor of theirs, he was like, “Listen, Nick, I support this 100%. This is awesome. I really do wish you the best. So a week, a month, a year, five years, if it doesn’t work out, your job’s here.

Paul Wurth:

That’s amazing.

Tom Houghton:

That’s pretty good

Nick Schiffer:

I was like, “I have nothing to lose.”

Paul Wurth:

Now, you have to do it, yeah.

Nick Schiffer:

I guess I should’ve said that first. That’s where-

Paul Wurth:

But that’s not super guaranteed.

Nick Schiffer:

No, of course, not.

Paul Wurth:

So you still made a huge leap. We talk about the leap. But were you afraid, “How do I start a business? How do I start a LLC? What does accounting look like?” Was any of that a fear to you, or were you like, “Screw it. I’m just going to go do it and figure it out”?

Nick Schiffer:

I don’t think it was a fear until I got my taxes done.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, I was thinking about taxes right away. If I was a 25 year old, running my own business, I make a little cash-

Nick Schiffer:

Yeah, I was definitely surprised when I did my … You know what? That’s something that I wish they … That needs to be taught, taxes, like how to be an adult. Not algebra, but how to be an adult, and the fact that you’re going to pay taxes, all of that.

Tom Houghton:

Especially as business owners. It’s not just-

Nick Schiffer:

Yeah, insurance. Every month, I got a bill saying, “Hey, you just did more volume. Now your insurance is up another $10 grand.” It was compounding, and now, I’m just like, “How do I pay like $98,000 a year insurance? Why? And I don’t understand it.” And I’m like, “Can someone explain it to me?

Nick Schiffer:

“If that’s what it is, that’s what it is, but I don’t know if it’s right or wrong. And I don’t know if my taxes are right or wrong.” So yes, that was probably my first reality check, like, “Okay, I need to figure this out.” I think I did my books the very last month of that first year, because I was like, “I’m too busy.”

Nick Schiffer:

I’d bill people, but I just dump those checks in an account. I mean, even now, we have systems in place, but we’re still perfecting that. It doesn’t really scare me, because I believe and I knew what we’re doing is the right thing, and in my eyes, doing the right thing is always the right thing.

Nick Schiffer:

So if my systems aren’t perfect, I’m not going to change what our values are because my system is screwed up. My values have to remain true and my system … Who we are has to remain the same, and then make the systems work, because I see too many people.

Nick Schiffer:

They’re like, “I’ll just take on this job,” or, “I’ll screw this person,” or whatever, because the systems are out of whack.

Paul Wurth:

Well, you lost me with the systems being, how you do your accounting?

Nick Schiffer:

Accounting, yeah.

Tom Houghton:

Processes.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, yeah, your processes.

Nick Schiffer:

More outside the accounting side of it.

Paul Wurth:

So it goes from a passion to, “Got to do the right thing. Got to be quality,” to, once you finally look at the books like, “That didn’t work out for me very good financially.”

Nick Schiffer:

Right, and it’s-

Paul Wurth:

Then you make your change to your actual values, is what you’re saying?

Nick Schiffer:

Right. That’s the shift I see, where it’s like, “All right, let’s not shift there,” because when you shift there, to get back on track, it’s like when I hire an apprentice or someone that doesn’t know. I want them to go as slow as they need or even slower, because I want them to be the very best, because efficiency and speed will come later. If I put them into a speed, to ever get to the level of quality that they need, they’re so far gone.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, they won’t go there.

Nick Schiffer:

It’s the same thing with the process. If we switch who we are value-wise, to bring it back to, “Hey, we’re high quality again,” it’s like, “No, dude, you ditched that two years ago. You guys can’t come back to that. Look at the product you put out for two years.” It’s always been, doing the right thing is going to be the right thing.

Paul Wurth:

But that leap, I think, there’s so many people who are listening, they’re probably more business owners. So they respect the leap. They did it. But there’s so many people who are probably sitting at, maybe, Buildertrend, any job, and they’re just like, “I have an idea. I have a passion. There’s no way I can start my business. “I have no money. I live paycheck to paycheck-ish,” right? Tom, you own your on business.

Tom Houghton:

It’s true. There comes a time where you just have to … I think you said it best, Nick, when you said, “They’re offering me $30,000 for 90 days. I know I can go bust my rear end and make $30,000.”

Paul Wurth:

I think.

Tom Houghton:

Right.

Paul Wurth:

Right. I think I can make-

Tom Houghton:

I think there’s a little bit of confidence that has to happen though, because-

Paul Wurth:

Did you have a job yet? Was it the guy’s job?

Tom Houghton:

The architect.

Paul Wurth:

The architect that wanted you-

Tom Houghton:

That was my first … Yeah, I had one right before him too. Yeah, I had work lined up.

Paul Wurth:

Okay, you had work lined up, because you [crosstalk].

Tom Houghton:

But I was always doing it, yeah, right.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, yeah, I got you.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah, you got to do the side hustle a little bit to get something there, and then once you feel the momentum, then you just got to make the switch.

Nick Schiffer:

Yeah, I mean, so many people have different thoughts on that, right? Some people say … For me, I had to work on my side work so much, to a point where you physically couldn’t do both anymore, and then make a choice, where some do just quit, and then start a company. I just never-

Paul Wurth:

That’s what I was talking about.

Nick Schiffer:

Yeah, I think it’s doable, and I think nowadays, it’s even easier, in the sense that the community that is in our industry alone is huge. Instagram alone, you can learn so much.

Paul Wurth:

Oh, you mean just by learning … That’s the-

Nick Schiffer:

And talking to people. Grabbing one of us, someone here, someone else that’s been in your position, and just talking. That’s what I wish I had. Everyone told me not to do it. I called my father’s accountant. I’m like, “Hey, I want to set up QuickBooks and blah, blah, blah.”

Nick Schiffer:

He’s like, “Are you sure you want to get into construction? My friend does it and he doesn’t really like it, and he doesn’t make a lot of money.” I remember exactly where I was on the phone with this guy, making the decision that I was starting a company, and this guy’s telling me, “No.”

Nick Schiffer:

I probably pay him $180 an hour. It’s like, “This guy’s telling me, ‘No.’” It’s funny because we met let last week, and we just hired a full-time videographer, and he’s like, “Not where I thought you were going to be in four years.”

Paul Wurth:

People say that about Buildertrend a lot too. It’s true.

Nick Schiffer:

I that makes it more fun.

Paul Wurth:

Well, it’s a chip on your shoulder in a way, right?

Nick Schiffer:

Right. It’s like, “All right, cool, let me prove you wrong.”

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, yeah, prove me wrong.

Nick Schiffer:

But I think having the positivity and … My father, I always say, he gave me the best and worst advice ever. His advice was everything. “You’ll figure it out,” which is terrible advice, but it’s also very true. I was like, “Dad, I don’t know how I’m going to have a kid. I can’t even afford to put food on the table for us.” He’s like, “You’ll figure it out.”

Tom Houghton:

I mean, that’s parenting in a nutshell, honestly.

Nick Schiffer:

Right. Every step, I’m like, “What if I don’t have work?” And he’s like, “When have you never had work?” I’m like, “Well, never.” He’s like, “Yeah, you’ll figure it out.” It’s funny to look back now and think about that, that was always his advice, and how this is the product of, “I’ll figure it out,” is wild.

Paul Wurth:

Well, also, when you’re talking about your employees, it basically was your advice to them, like, “Hey, what should I do, Nick?” “I don’t know. Figure it out. You know my standards.”

Nick Schiffer:

Yeah, “Do you want to talk it? You know the right thing to do.”

Paul Wurth:

Right, because it’s the same thing. If your dad would’ve given you some safe answer, it would’ve limited what you could do. It would’ve been easy. It makes sense.

Tom Houghton:

Way to go, Dad.

Paul Wurth:

Way to go, Dad.

Tom Houghton:

Shout out. Shout out.

Paul Wurth:

Wait, I thought we were canceling shout-outs.

Nick Schiffer:

He is definitely on Instagram, and he will definitely listen to this.

Tom Houghton:

Oh, good, there you go.

Paul Wurth:

Oh, good, Dad’s on Instagram. So let’s talk about Instagram. That’s how you’re famous. Did you talk about that earlier?

Nick Schiffer:

I did. Famous.

Paul Wurth:

You are definitely famous in these halls.

Tom Houghton:

I think once you … yeah.

Paul Wurth:

There’s so much hype of, “Nick from NS Builders is coming.”

Tom Houghton:

I think, by Instagram standards, once you pass that 10,000-follower mark, you’re kind of getting famous.

Nick Schiffer:

Well, I appreciate it.

Paul Wurth:

Especially in this industry.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah, well, and you go past that. I mean, you’re eight times, almost nine times past that now, so I think it’s probably safe to say.

Paul Wurth:

Right, and we’ve talked to a few guests, the Emergent, the AFT, they’re all-

Nick Schiffer:

Yeah, that’s a great team.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah.

Nick Schiffer:

Matt and Brad are great.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah, they’re both great.

Paul Wurth:

Yep, but what I found really interesting, and I don’t know if you did it, or it just organically happened, is the idea of networking, sharing information, because for a long time in this industry, it was like trade secrets, right?

Nick Schiffer:

But with the exception of “This Old House.”

Paul Wurth:

Okay, so somebody else brought that up.

Nick Schiffer:

… 40 years, they’ve been sharing everything.

Paul Wurth:

But they weren’t for profit, right? Or in a lot of ways. I think people were scared of sharing in their community to their competitors.

Nick Schiffer:

I think we get this question all the time. Why? I don’t see any issue with it at all, and I constantly see what we do be reproduced by someone else. Maybe we get credit. Maybe we don’t. I don’t care. But what it’s doing is, number one, it’s elevating their approach.

Nick Schiffer:

They now need to put a little bit more effort to doing. But they’re also getting the confidence. But at the same time, it’s making us always innovate. I sat down with the guys from Blum Hinges, from Germany. I was at a conference with them, and he pulled me aside and he asked me the same exact question.

Nick Schiffer:

He goes, “I just don’t know if it makes sense for us to share.” I’m like, “So you make a brand new hinge. It’s innovative. It’s the most innovative hinge on the market for cabinetry. What happens if you sent the blueprints to Grass?” Another hinge company, right?

Nick Schiffer:

“Well, they would dissect it, and reproduce, and make their own version, right? What if you don’t? Well, they’re going to get your hinge, and you have no idea when they’re going to come out with their own, because you haven’t controlled that.”

Nick Schiffer:

I’m controlling the fact that, “Here’s my information. Here’s my blueprint. Go produce it,” because the moment I do that, I’m like, “All right, he’s got that. I need to think of something better.”

Paul Wurth:

Yep, that’s a really cool way to think about it. Not a cool way, that’s the reality.

Nick Schiffer:

But a lot of people, they’re like, “Well, I’m cool with what I do. I don’t need to keep doing cooler stuff.” This isn’t directed at you. If you’re cool at that plateau, that’s totally fine. It’s the people that are like, “I want better. I want to build better. I want to build better quality. I want to build bigger homes, more innovation stuff.”

Nick Schiffer:

Then you need to innovate, and then you need to force yourself to innovate. And one of the best ways to force yourself to innovate is to make everyone behind you right on your ass.

Tom Houghton:

That’s great. I mean, this is a-

Paul Wurth:

Tom’s got an ear-to-ear grin.

Tom Houghton:

I do.

Paul Wurth:

You’re just speaking his language.

Tom Houghton:

I do because it’s-

Paul Wurth:

Tom’s very high quality. You preach that a lot.

Tom Houghton:

Thanks. It drives me nuts that, in my mind, construction is a science and it’s an art, but both of those things can yield great results. And I feel like, a lot of times, they don’t because the passion’s not there. And you have somebody like yourself, who I’d say is an influencer in the industry.

Tom Houghton:

And you’re looking ahead, and you’re going, “What’s next? How could we make this better,” right? We, of course, tried to do that here at Buildertrend. We’re always looking, “How are we going to make this better?” Again, you can leave a wake behind you that just looks like terror, or you could, like you said, lift the entire industry behind you. And that will also then push you further forward.

Nick Schiffer:

I mean, eventually, that’s going to trickle down to … Say it’s quality-based … the low-quality guys. And they’re going to be like, “All right, I got to up my game a little bit.” And what that does for the industry is that, now, we don’t have this gap of guys that suck, or say, the middle-of-the-road client either has to go with a guy that sucks because he’s cheap enough, or they exhaust their life savings on the guy that’s expensive.

Nick Schiffer:

There’s no one in the middle. If the guys up top are sharing everything, that stuff trickles down, and then you have this natural progression from a 1 to a 10. And now this whole middle class gets this whole group of five to sevens.

Paul Wurth:

We talk about that a lot here. We talk about elevating the industry as it relates to another topic we talked about, which is transparency. That is a huge problem. People’s perception of construction companies, “They are out to screw me,” right? Every time.

Paul Wurth:

So to elevate that … I’m not product pitching Buildertrend … but the client portal is the vehicle for that, but the client portal doesn’t do diddly squat unless the person using it, that’s part of their business, is to elevate communication and transparency. So it’s important.

Tom Houghton:

I love that you mentioned that you can control … You’re kind of controlling your competitors a little bit. I, of course, come from a tech background, so another company that I love, Tesla, shout out to them, elevating the industry. So they share all their patents because they go, “We believe in something.”

Tom Houghton:

So they just did something where they showed the internal computer of their car with everyone. So you have all these other car companies who are now looking and going, “Oh, crap. We have all the answers,” because they could’ve just bought another car, just like said-

Nick Schiffer:

And dissected it.

Tom Houghton:

Exactly, dissected it. They’re controlling it because they also said, “Oh, by the way. This is our current generation. We’re already working on the next generation.” And it’s the same thing in your industry. You have an opportunity to make a difference and set a standard, a new standard. Gets me excited. Sorry.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, you have that luxury when you’re a billionaire, Elon Musk. I mean, honestly.

Nick Schiffer:

But he wasn’t always.

Paul Wurth:

Well, he has been for a long time.

Nick Schiffer:

Yeah, but, I mean, I don’t know if you read his book. There is a perception that he’s a psycho, and he’s an idiot, and he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s wasting money. But he’s never swayed from what he believes in. I forget when he sold, was it PayPal.

Paul Wurth:

PayPal.

Nick Schiffer:

Sold PayPal. He invested all his money and he slept on his friend’s couch. He’s like, “Well, I’m doing something for the planet,” not for the US, the planet. He just was like, “Yeah, so I’m just going to sleep on your couch, bro. I have no money. I invested it all in this stuff I believe in, not that is going to make me … I believe in.”

Tom Houghton:

But how different would everything (be) if everyone just did something that they believed in?

Nick Schiffer:

Very different, right?

Tom Houghton:

And that’s exactly what you’re doing. Trying to bring it back full circle.

Nick Schiffer:

But the problem is, it would be this incredible wave of failures. People just give up too easy. I said it earlier. There’s times I’ve said, “Why am I doing this?” And it’s because, what? Maybe I forget to bill clients for a month. I’ve done that. That sucks.

Nick Schiffer:

It’s like, “How did we not bill last month.” Cash flow issues. I’m not perfect, but it’s like, “Why am I dealing with this stress?” It’s like, “Screw it, I’ll just go work for someone. I shouldn’t have to worry about the fact that I forgot to bill someone.”

Nick Schiffer:

Then I’m like, “Nick, you listening to yourself?” It’s like, “Just bill them. You’ll be fine. You’re doing the right thing.”

Paul Wurth:

But I connect with my question earlier. I connect with your struggles when you talk to your dad about, “Hey, I don’t know if I can have a kid, because I can’t pay bills.” It goes back to you being very transparent and honest. You are going to have those times if you start your own business, right? It’s not going to be easy, but rewarding, fulfilling. You’re actually doing something that you believe in. You’re driven.

Nick Schiffer:

I mean, from a business side, yeah, you need to have someone help you set up the systems, and make sure that you’re accounting, and you’re paying yourself right, and all that. I can’t comment on that or recommend who you work with, but that is very important, from a business side.

Nick Schiffer:

Again, not a business coach. I’m solely saying that my father said, “You’ll figure it out.” I believed in him, and to this day, that’s never steered me wrong. There’s times when its like, “Yeah, hey, we’re not going to go out this week,” not that we can’t afford it, but maybe the money isn’t coming in the right way.

Nick Schiffer:

“Let’s just reevaluate what we’re doing.” And I need to audit myself personally in the business side.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, that’s a good point.

Nick Schiffer:

But you can’t let the fact that money is an issue for a month, because you didn’t bill or you didn’t produce the quality, sway you into a different lane.

Paul Wurth:

A whole different path to yourself.

Nick Schiffer:

Because then, yeah, you’re totally restarting.

Tom Houghton:

Can we talk about people? Again, you started off by yourself. It sounded like you did the family, friends thing, and that didn’t work out.

Nick Schiffer:

I love those guys, but no.

Tom Houghton:

Right, exactly. So you went out and you hired somebody, and they stuck with you. So how did you find that person? I mean, can you give us more insight into that?

Nick Schiffer:

So every single person that works for me … I’m sorry, 13 out of the 15 people that work for me DMed me Instagram, and just was like, “Hey, I like what you’re doing. I want to be a part of it,” whether it was in response to one of the ads we made or not. But they believed in who we were.

Nick Schiffer:

Mike, the first one, I commented on one of his photos. So he was a friend of a friend, but I knew him through my buddy, Jay. I was following him, and he posted a picture of carpentry. I’m like, “Hey, when are you going to come work for me?” Just on his thing.

Nick Schiffer:

He messaged me. He’s like, “If you’re serious, I’m down to talk,” and I hired him. The most recent hire, who’s Zach, he just started this week. I’m not there, because I’m at Nebraska.

Paul Wurth:

Omaha, Nebraska.

Nick Schiffer:

But he followed us on Instagram, loved what we did. Randomly, we had neighbors over, and he was talking about this kid that built great cabinetry, and that he couldn’t afford him, but he loved his work. I’m like, “What’s his name?” He’s like, “Oh, he loves your stuff on Instagram.”

Nick Schiffer:

So I messaged him on Instagram that night. I’m like, “Zach, we need to talk.” And he was like, “What?” And I was like, “I want to hire you.” He came in, and he interviewed. He interviewed once. Brought him, and he was definitely not sure he wanted to leave his company.

Nick Schiffer:

Came in for the second interview on-site, and I’m just preaching what we are, not a sales pitch, but, “This is who we are.” He’s like, “Dude, I’m just going to stop you. I don’t care what you have me do, I want to be a part of this.” And I’m like, “All right, cool.”

Nick Schiffer:

Made him an offer, took it. Came in a week later, and his boss flooded him with, “I’ll give you all this.” And he was in this … His mind was going crazy. He’s like, “I don’t know what to do.” And I’m like, “Listen, I’m going to be, again, transparent. Let me be honest with you.

Nick Schiffer:

“I’ve been in your position. I’m not going to sit here and offer you a brand new Tesla because … ” Shout out to Elon. ” … because your boss … This is who we are. This is what I can offer, and I can offer you a career in an environment and in a culture that you’re going to genuinely love.

Nick Schiffer:

“I don’t know who your boss is. Maybe he can do the same. But I’m not here to try to sway your mind. You’re going to make a decision based on your gut, but you’re sitting here in front of me two days after he told you this, and you’re nervous, and you don’t know what your decision is. So let’s not talk now.

Nick Schiffer:

“Go home. Let it sit over the weekend. You’re not supposed to start for three more weeks. Give it a week.” And I got a message, I think, a week later. He’s like, “I’m in.” And he was like, “I had to go with my gut. You’re right. He was making it hard.” It’s like breaking up with a girl. It’s like, “I love you.” “Oh, you do?” It’s like, “Maybe I shouldn’t break up.”

Nick Schiffer:

But ultimately, he was like, “No, I like what you guys do and what you stand for, and you’ve never swayed from that.”

Paul Wurth:

That was a great full-circle story, right? Because I loved how you were like, “Dude, I was in your shoes. They offered me $30 grand.”

Nick Schiffer:

And you reconsider everything, but-

Paul Wurth:

But you got to check like you said and go, “What am I really about? What made me think about the first decision?”

Nick Schiffer:

I mentioned briefly, I actually did hire one more friend, and it’s Doug, who, in college, we were amicable. We weren’t best friends, but we lived in the same house. But he’s my videographer. He went off on his own, and he started his own video company, yeah.

Paul Wurth:

Tom’s familiar.

Nick Schiffer:

And I was like, “Doug, I was love to involve you in … ” This was early on, a couple years ago ” … in my social media. Would love to produce some cool videos.” So he was all for it. We started doing this serious on my personal home. That dwindled off because it got too stressful.

Nick Schiffer:

He ended up closing his company. Went and worked for someone. Restarted his company. Then I started hiring him again. Then all the builders around on Instagram were hiring him. And he produced videos, and I’d watch them. I’m like, “Doug, that looks just like mine.”

Nick Schiffer:

I’m like, “Dude, change the video … the song.” But that’s who he is. He’s putting out the same product because that’s his creativity. So ultimately, I was like, “You know what? I want to hire you full time. So you tell me the number we have to get to, and if I can’t pay you that right off the bat, let’s map it out and figure out how we get you there.”

Nick Schiffer:

And he was like, “Dude, honestly, I’m sick of invoicing people. So if I can just get a paycheck, and film and produce cool stuff, let’s do it.” So I was like, “All right.” So I told everyone, I’m like, “All of you guys are going to be on video. I want you guys to be as involved, and I want you guys to get excited about it.”

Nick Schiffer:

And he started his first week, and we just posted a video just a minute ago. And Tom, one of my carpenters, reached out, and he was like, “I want to do a video on how to install window trim.” And I called Doug. I’m like, “I don’t even want to be there. Just go do it.”

Nick Schiffer:

And he sent me the video, and I’m like, “That’s better than me.” So it’s using that to expand sharing our knowledge and sharing our process, and showing our clients our value, and then the professionals the how to. And that’s the hardest bridge to …

Nick Schiffer:

You have all this content where it’s very professional-driven, and then you have all this content that’s very client-driven. And I’m trying to desperately bridge that, where it’s entertaining and great for clients, but also, it’s informative and great for the professional, and respected.

Paul Wurth:

You started out saying, “Just get it out there,” right? No strategy around your social media. Has that evolved for you, since you’ve gotten a lot better at it, or as do it more?

Nick Schiffer:

When I start overthinking, or putting together a strategy or that picture doesn’t look good, I’m like, “Dude, check … Just post it.” Now, I’m teaching social media here, but consistency is far more important. And coming from a guy that now has a videographer and we hire photographers, but consistency is way more important.

Nick Schiffer:

I do the video and the photographer for the final client-facing things. But the consistency’s far more important. And if it doesn’t do well, who cares? That algorithm is always going to change. Instagram will change it, and then flag you for being fake or something.

Tom Houghton:

I watched a video on your YouTube channel earlier today about stair treads. You were putting a notch in-

Nick Schiffer:

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s on our Lake Drive product. So the Lamello clips.

Tom Houghton:

I was sitting there with my mouth open, like, “This is amazing.” And I go, “I have never built a staircase in my life,” but it was captivating. I learned something out of it.

Nick Schiffer:

That’s cool to hear.

Tom Houghton:

I’m a huge learner, so I love-

Nick Schiffer:

That’s the hardest thing from the professional connection, and also, the client-facing, is you have to have a professional. I can’t go in there being professional and having a professional. So we had Rich Trethewey on our podcast.

Nick Schiffer:

And before it, he’s like, “Dude, love the video, but you guys had no idea who the professional was. You guys were both talking.” So it’s like, “All right, I learned from that.” I’m like, “You guys have been doing this 40 years, man. I get it.” So I’m going to go in, and I’m going to let who I’m talking to, talk, and let me just be the loud guy that introduces and talks about what we’re about too, but let them be the professional.

Tom Houghton:

You’re the set up guy.

Nick Schiffer:

But that’s super …

Paul Wurth:

That’s you.

Nick Schiffer:

That’s me. But you have-

Paul Wurth:

Know your role.

Nick Schiffer:

… to know that we can do a video, like Tom’s video with the window … Molly watched it. Molly’s like, “I’ve never done a window, but I totally understand what he’s talking about.” Doug’s like, “It needs an intro.” I’m like, “Dude, it doesn’t. Post it.”

Paul Wurth:

But everything’s got … Definitely, in social media, what works, what doesn’t work, obviously, post it, do it. But you will learn as you go. Cut the intro, move on.

Nick Schiffer:

Right, and instead of being like, “We can’t post that,” just post it. Put it up, learn, get the feedback, move on. Same thing with the photos. I would post a photo and they’d be like, “Oh, your trim’s crooked.” “Cool, man, thanks for pointing it out. So now, when I post a video, I’m looking for it. It’s like, “Yeah, trim’s crooked. Let’s do a different photo.

Paul Wurth:

Right, you learn from it. So let me ask you this. How much of your time is answering comments, or responding to comments or DMs from people?

Nick Schiffer:

Not much.

Paul Wurth:

How many comments do you get on a post? A ballpark.

Nick Schiffer:

50 to 100, maybe.

Paul Wurth:

Do you have a-

Nick Schiffer:

I try to respond.

Paul Wurth:

You try to respond to all of them?

Nick Schiffer:

Yeah, I’ll do it in my free time.

Paul Wurth:

When’s that?

Nick Schiffer:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

We have a bit of your schedule there to see-

Nick Schiffer:

Go in the bathroom or something or at lunchtime.

Tom Houghton:

That’s a behind-the-scene secret, right?

Nick Schiffer:

That’s a great time. It’s multitasking.

Tom Houghton:

There you go.

Nick Schiffer:

No, I do try, especially people that want to have a conversation or are genuinely asking real questions, and if someone’s complimenting us, I want to reach out. DMs, same thing, I try. I mean, there’s a ton in there that I don’t get to. It’s hard to fail, but it’s a really important part for growth, but also for the respect.

Nick Schiffer:

You don’t want to just be tossing out content and not communicating. That’s a big thing people do, and that’s a big failure.

Paul Wurth:

There’s unwritten rules in the social media game. It’s like, “If you’re going to post on comment on something, have the respect to comment back, or mention it, or do something,” right? Because it’s something that builds on each other. And you guys have an unofficial, official network.

Paul Wurth:

I mentioned two of them, AFT and Emergent, right? So you guys are all connected now. You guys respect each other. You help each other.

Nick Schiffer:

I was talking to Brad yesterday.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, that’s awesome. It’s really cool.

Tom Houghton:

What sets NS Builders and yourself apart from everyone else?

Nick Schiffer:

I take a very different approach to who I am, and who I want to be, and who I want my team to be.

Paul Wurth:

What does that mean? Authentic, you mean?

Nick Schiffer:

Authentic, yeah. Transparent. You can ask anyone. I’m psycho when it comes out to what we put out for product. I rip stuff out. I talk about this all the time. I constantly rip stuff out because I’m like, “We can do that better.” And I constantly push the limits of my guys with it. I mean, we have a job right now. God, I hope … Well, I’ll just tell the story.

Tom Houghton:

We can pull it later.

Nick Schiffer:

No, no, don’t pull it because it’s not authentic, right?

Paul Wurth:

That’s good.

Nick Schiffer:

A year and a half ago, we decided that we were going to build all our cabinetry in house. I’m like, “That’s what we’re going to. We’re not going to ever install anyone else’s cabinetry. We want to make this our own.” And we took this project on, and we’re getting so insanely busy.

Nick Schiffer:

It became a bottleneck for us because we have all these projects and we can’t build cabinetry fast enough because, at the time, it was two guys, three guys, now, four guys, in the shop, making the stuff by hand. We don’t order anything. Doors are made by hand, everything.

Nick Schiffer:

So long story short, we wanted to team up with small mill workshops, like, “Hey, come under our umbrella. We’ll handle the design. We’ll walk you through the process. We’ll walk you through how we want to construct this stuff. And help us be able to produce more work.”

Nick Schiffer:

We did. We walked them all the way through up to fabrication. And we obviously weren’t in his shop through fabrication. It got delivered. There were some concerns. It got installed. There was a lot of concerns, to the point where, internally, I’m trying to figure out, “All right, what do I do here?”

Nick Schiffer:

It was a big chunk of money. And it got to a point where, unfortunately, I wasn’t putting the attention on it that I should have, and then it got to a point where the client and the architect were like, “Hey, we need to have a meeting about the cabinetry.”

Paul Wurth:

What stage of construction is this? Right at the tail end, or what?

Nick Schiffer:

It was a real small kitchen bedroom. Yeah, it was at the tail … They were wrapping up paint. There’s a handful of things that we did wrong anyway, but in the sense we left cabinets unadjusted, so they looked like crap. That should’ve just been an absolutely no.

Nick Schiffer:

It’s funny. I’m actually rewriting our stand operating procedure, and in it says, you are never to leave a cabinet not adjusted. Before you go home, they need to look adjusted.

Paul Wurth:

And they have that perception from that point-

Nick Schiffer:

Right. So anyway, fast forward, I’m like, “Hey, I’ll be there for the meeting.” And we walk in, and he’s like, “So I found out … ” And they hired us because we were going to build the cabinetry. He’s like, “I found out that you guys didn’t build this.”

Nick Schiffer:

I’m like, “Before this goes any further, let me explain. It’s not we were … We’re not trying to pull a fast one on you. I’m transparent. Yes, we were working with a small mill workshop because we’re trying to expand our network of mill workers, so we can do more work.”

Nick Schiffer:

Walk him through the explanation, and I said, “But at the end of the day,” and this goes with any of my projects, “if you’re not happy with something, I’ll rip this out and I’ll build it again.” And I said, “Let me do this. Let me bring my director of mill work, Ken, to the job tomorrow. We’re going to go through this.”

Nick Schiffer:

I went on-site with him. We spent six hour hours adjusting the kitchen, figuring out … walking through piece by piece, what was wrong with it? Could we fix it? Could we get it to a point where we looked at and we’re like, “Damn, that looks good,” and we decided we couldn’t.

Nick Schiffer:

They went away, and we emailed them the following Monday, and I said, “Listen, I considered this. We’re going to replace your entire kitchen.” And they were like … I’m thinking about it now, how this is ruining our schedule. But ultimately, what it came down to is, it just wasn’t something we could say, “This is NS Builders. This is who we are. This is what we do.”

Nick Schiffer:

Could we have got that kitchen to a point where it was good? Yeah, we could’ve refinished all the stuff that needed to be refinished. We could’ve changed a couple doors that needed to be changed. But it wasn’t, at the end of the day, our product, and we were never going to get there.

Nick Schiffer:

And everyone’s like, “Well, did you tell the kid that built it?” I’m like, “For what?” He knew, coming into it, he needed to put his best foot forward. He knew what we produced. He knew that we were super critical of stuff. He knew, so if that’s his best, I can’t fault him for that.

Nick Schiffer:

This is my fault. He put his best foot forward. It wasn’t what we do. So for me to go back and say, “Hey, you screwed up,” or, “Hey, I need money back because I got to replace those,” it’s pointless.

Paul Wurth:

There’s so many points to that story that are great, I think, and I think it speaks to your ethos as a business, right? This is how you guys run things. There’s a scenario where you say, “It’s good enough,” and you actually don’t look bad, because who ever sees those cabinets again, besides people who live there and their friends, right?

Nick Schiffer:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

You could’ve done that and kept your reputation, right?

Nick Schiffer:

Sure.

Paul Wurth:

The other side of that-

Nick Schiffer:

It would’ve never affected me.

Paul Wurth:

Right. The other side of that, you could’ve done that, and they could’ve been super pissed, and told the whole world. That’s a terrible scenario, sure. But I think more importantly, internally, you’re speaking to your team too, right? The minute you do that, you can say as loud as you want, “This is who we are,” but your actions are speaking different. And then that’s even the longest worst example.

Nick Schiffer:

I called the architect the next day, and I was like, “Hey, listen, two things. First, I want to say thank you for scheduling the meeting, taking the time out of your day, spending a couple hours there with me. Secondly, I want to apologize, because we obviously didn’t communicate correctly, and the expectations were not met.

Nick Schiffer:

“But I want to let you know first before I talk to the client that we will do whatever it takes to make sure they’re happy, and that is probably going to mean that we’re going to replace the entire kitchen.” I think he was a little surprised by it.

Nick Schiffer:

And he was like, “We’re working with another builder,” and they’re just like, “Well, that’s the best we can do,” or, “That’s our product,” or just all these excuses. And I look at this as, we screwed up. We could’ve communicated better. We could’ve done this better. All these things. The only way that we can redeem ourself is by leaving that project at 100%.

Paul Wurth:

I was going to ask. What was the client’s reaction when you told them you were going to replace it? What were they expecting?

Nick Schiffer:

They were expecting us to be able to adjust it. So a lot of the issues were with the finish, the paint. In person, when I met with them, I said, “I will replace this kitchen if you’re not happy.” He’s like, “No, no, no, I don’t want you to lose money on the job.” I said, “I literally don’t care about the money on this project.

Nick Schiffer:

“This isn’t about that. This is about your expectation and you being happy with our end product. So if I need to replace it, that’s what I’m going to do.” And I said to the architect, I said, “If he’s going to fight me on the fact that he doesn’t want me to replace it, he’s going to have to fight pretty hard,” because, I mean, I want to take pictures of it. Let’s look at it from a marketing side, right?

Nick Schiffer:

And I know I get so much kickback. You can only write so much off on marketing. It’s like, “Yeah, sure, whatever. If that’s what works for you, that’s what works for you. I want to be able to be proud of that.” So the client emailed back. I don’t remember exactly. But it was more or less understanding how hard of a decision that was, but appreciates that we’re going to go to that level, to make sure that the product is 100%.

Nick Schiffer:

Now, the hardest part is, when? So we went there and we finished the job. It’s done, with the understanding that we’re replacing the kitchen. So we made it livable. Finished the kitchen. Put all the hardware on. Installed all the fillers, all the trim. It’s considered done, but we’re going to be going back, and ripping it out, and doing it again.

Paul Wurth:

Right, in one sense, it’s a dollar cost for you, and probably a pretty significant one.

Nick Schiffer:

Lots of dollars.

Paul Wurth:

Lots of dollar cost. But in another sense, you’re also going to be limiting your team ability to do other jobs wherever you decide to get to it three, six, whenever it is, months down the road. But it’s a smart decision, I think. I can say that, because I don’t have to write the check or use the money. But from the outside looking it, it’s a very smart decision.

Nick Schiffer:

Yeah, and I’m being honest when the financial side of it was never a consideration on whether or not I would do it. It was never about that. It was more how this is going to impact my team, and how our schedule isn’t going to allow for it. I could look at it and be like, “Oh, the neighborhood calls for something like that,” or, “The house doesn’t call for a nicer kitchen.”

Nick Schiffer:

None of that matters. They hired us, expecting a certain product, and we’re not delivering that. Then we need to fix it and deliver the product they expected.

Paul Wurth:

Well, and in this industry, in your industry, client reviews are super important, getting more so every day that there’s new services out there. In addition to that, there is … What do they say about restaurants? It’s like, “If you have a good meal, okay meal, you’ll tell 1 or 2 people. If you have a bad meal, you’ll tell 20.” Same thing, right?

Nick Schiffer:

Yeah. Well, I mean, I’ve never said, “This restaurant’s so good, I have to write a Yelp review. But you go and you have a … “I want to write a Yelp. I got to tell everyone this is terrible.” For the record, I’ve never done that. I think that’s so ridiculous.

Paul Wurth:

It is, because I that’s how I got through my six and a half years of college that we alluded to in the last episode is, I was working a lot. Yeah, I would never trash … Anyway, what’s even … If you keep pulling on the string, the kitchen is where you host parties. They got a new kitchen.

Paul Wurth:

They’re going to have all their friends there. Their friends are going to say, “Look how … Your cabinets, they’re amazing.” “You know what? Let me tell you a story about that,” right? And that stories going to be only putting you in a good light. It’s not why you do it, I get that but it all works together.

Nick Schiffer:

Right. It’s funny, because I sat in the office. I was like, “You know what? This is the decision I’m making.” This was Friday afternoon. And I’m like, “Let me think about this over the weekend to make sure that it makes sense.” And then Saturday, I’m like, “Yep, still makes sense.”

Nick Schiffer:

Sunday, “Still makes sense.” Monday, “Still makes sense. Ken, does this still make sense?” “Yeah, makes sense to me.” I’m like, “Okay.” And I’m like, “If I let that slip, why can’t I let this slip and that slip?”

Paul Wurth:

That was my point.

Tom Houghton:

It’s a slippery slope.

Nick Schiffer:

Right.

Tom Houghton:

Thanks.

Nick Schiffer:

Alliteration.

Tom Houghton:

Big fan of that.

Nick Schiffer:

It’s very true. It has to be just cold turkey. You just have to do it.

Paul Wurth:

Well, again, in talking about your team, you did a tour this morning of Buildertrend. We have a lot of stuff on the wall. We’re a big proponent of, “If you have something to say, put it on the wall and then preach to it.” That doesn’t mean anything if you don’t back it up in action, right? As your leadership. And that’s the other thing. If they saw you do that, whatever you preach is out of the window.

Nick Schiffer:

And it’s funny because all of my team, and I think of Mike, for example, who’s been with me the longest, he would call me. He’d be like, “Hey, this doesn’t really look good. What should I do?” I’d be like, “Rip it out. Call the tile guy and tell him to come back and fix it.” “Okay, I figured that’s what you would say.”

Nick Schiffer:

Now, I show up and I’m like, “Why is that tile ripped off the wall?” He’s like, “Because it looked like crap and I just called him.” And I’m like, “These guys are getting it.” And Ken, the same thing. He’d build cabinetry and keep asking my opinion, like, “Hey, what about this,” or, “Do you think … How should we build that?”

Nick Schiffer:

I’m like, “Well, I don’t know, you tell me. What’s the best we can build that?” “Well, this way.” “Cool.” Or, “Hey, this got screwed up. Should we redo it?” “Yeah, and make sure you tell the client that, that cabinet’s not going to be on time because we made a mistake and we want to correct it.”

Paul Wurth:

Total transparency.

Tom Houghton:

Do you think that this is … I don’t feel like this is normal in the industry though. Would you agree? Am I being too harsh?

Nick Schiffer:

No, no, no, I would agree, but I’m being honest when I say I don’t pay attention to what other people are doing. And that sounds like me, “Oh, whatever, I just do my own thing.” But I’m being truthful. People do say that all the time. It’s like, “Well, that’s not the normalcy.”

Nick Schiffer:

And that’s why we have “The Modern Craftsman.” We’re genuinely trying to promote good craft, and there’s such negativity around our industry, we need to change that. I’ve chosen to be totally transparent with my approach on social media, with my approach financially, the way we communicate what’s going on.

Nick Schiffer:

We’re expensive. We’re not a cheap contractor, but it’s because the amount of effort and the time we put into this stuff. But let me transparent and explain that process, and walk you through that process all the way through.

Paul Wurth:

Well, and that’s where my head was at is, I’m listing to this as a potential business owner in construction, or somebody who owns a business. And quite honestly, I can’t spend money. I can’t just afford-

Nick Schiffer:

Yeah, a lot of people say that.

Paul Wurth:

You know what I mean? How do I do that, especially if I’m starting off?

Nick Schiffer:

It’s like, “Oh, yeah, of course, Nick just wrote that off. He’s got plenty of money to … ” which is absolutely bogus.

Paul Wurth:

Right. Right. So how do you get to a place where you can do that and still just be financially viable, right?

Nick Schiffer:

I don’t have an answer to that.

Tom Houghton:

Can I take a stab at that?

Nick Schiffer:

Yeah.

Tom Houghton:

I feel like you actually gave the answer, which is that you’re elevating your team to a higher standard, because you can’t just do this by yourself. You’ve got to lift the whole tide here. And everybody across the board in the industry needs to have as much passion about their projects as, frankly, you do.

Nick Schiffer:

You know what? We actually touched on this topic, and I remember that conversation. It was, maybe you screwed something up. Maybe you do a really bad job on something, and maybe you physically and financially cannot fix it, right?

Paul Wurth:

That was where I was getting at, yeah.

Nick Schiffer:

Okay? So you have no money, no time, your family is going to … whatever. The worst-case scenario. Talk to the client and say, “Listen, I screwed up. I want to fix this. I can’t right now. I can’t. I can’t financially afford to fix this. But I promise to you, when I can, I’ll be back.”

Paul Wurth:

This is something I never thought of, because in your story about the kitchen, I thought you were just going to stop, tear, do it right then and there, but you’re like, “No, I’m just coming back. Trust me, I’m coming back.” That’s another good point. It makes it seem very simple when you say it like that.

Nick Schiffer:

Yeah, I mean, there’s everything to do with it, but just be honest. I mean, you don’t have to rip the whole house down and redo it because you messed up, but if there’s something that you messed up, just talk to them and communicate, and at least let them know that, “Hey, I know this is messed up, and I really do want to fix it.”

Nick Schiffer:

And whether it’s a, “I promise I’ll do it in a year,” or, “I promise I’ll do it when I can afford to. But you have my word, I really want to make this right.” It’s way easier to be like, “Are they cool this? They’re cool with it. All right, I’m just going to keep going.”

Tom Houghton:

Yeah, the client communication is-

Paul Wurth:

We don’t feel that.

Tom Houghton:

… that is a extremely difficult conversation.

Nick Schiffer:

It’s undervalued.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah, but it goes miles with that client.

Paul Wurth:

Well, I don’t know that it’s hard to have. I think that’s his point. If you set the expectation up front, like, “Hey, this is who I am. I’m going to communicate with you,” I always think about it like, people just hate being lied to. They don’t hate the truth. If you tell them-

Nick Schiffer:

No, they hate the truth. I mean, they don’t hate the truth, but they don’t like the truth.

Paul Wurth:

They don’t like it, but it’s far better than being lied to, or feeling like you’re getting lied to. If you just say to them, “I screwed up,” I get a lot of people … Look, at Buildertrend, right? We have 450 employees. I bet people are afraid to come to a manager and say, “I screwed up.”

Nick Schiffer:

Of course, they do.

Paul Wurth:

The reality is, is everybody screws up. I know, listeners, I do it sometimes. Very rare. But I would much rather somebody just say, “Here’s what happened. I screwed it up. Sorry about that. I learned my lesson”

Nick Schiffer:

“Let’s make it right.”

Paul Wurth:

That’s it. And then, look, if they continue to screw up the same way-

Tom Houghton:

There’s a different problem.

Paul Wurth:

But that’s rarely the case.

Nick Schiffer:

But that’s the thing. It will financially impact you, but having that financial impact is going to also help you make sure it doesn’t happen again. It’s like, “Yeah, I bet-“

Paul Wurth:

That hurt, you mean, that you felt with-

Nick Schiffer:

Yeah, right. I say all the time that I rip stuff out all the time, it could be as simple as, “Hey, that piece of baseboard is scribed crappy. Let’s redo that one piece.” And the most extreme is, “This … ” This is by far, the most extreme case I’ve ever dealt with.

Nick Schiffer:

And it’s funny, because Peter Humphrey from Humphrey Munson Kitchens in the UK was on our podcast a couple episodes ago, and he alluded to the fact that, if anyone was ever unhappy, he promised that he would rip out a kitchen. And I love hearing that.

Nick Schiffer:

I was like, “How many have you ripped out?” And he’s like, “None.” I’m like, “Damn.”

Tom Houghton:

It was like, “I really just want you to say one.”

Paul Wurth:

Shared pain.

Nick Schiffer:

Yeah.

Tom Houghton:

“Got me beat.”

Nick Schiffer:

Well, at the time, I hadn’t ripped out any. But then I thought of that when I was like, “I’m ripping this out. I have to tell Peter.” So now, I’m in the lead with how many kitchens we rip out. But it is. You just have to be honest, and you have to stay true to who you are and what you are product is, because when you sway from it …

Nick Schiffer:

I mean, I learn that lesson on the daily when I look at a new job that’s like, “Well, it’s not our product, but we could do it and we could make money on it.” And we do it, and it’s like, “No one’s invested in it.” I’m looking at it like, “All right, let’s just get this thing done.”

Nick Schiffer:

And the moment I hear myself say that, I reevaluate everything. I’m like, “All right.” I sit down with my team. I’m like, “Listen, this job, I know you want to tell me how much it sucks. You are not allowed to talk about it. Don’t tell me it sucks. Don’t tell me the client didn’t pay. Don’t tell me anything about any negative side of this job.

Nick Schiffer:

“We all communicated it loud and clear. That’s done with. Today, let’s move forward and focus on how beautiful it’s going to be, or the fact that we’re going to have these really cool photos. I don’t care, but that’s it.” And that’s how we’ve powered through these projects that I say I shouldn’t have taken.

Paul Wurth:

It’s a great management tip and it could be applied anywhere, because, truly, I think the role of a business owner or manager is to set that tone, and you set it unconsciously by the way you were probably acting towards it, or just what happened. But you need to stop and go, “Positive attitude only.”

Nick Schiffer:

I’m obnoxiously positive.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, and when you talk about attitude, it’s not a request that you have a positive attitude. It’s like, “It is a rule, or you don’t work here.” And look, we all get it. Our guys make hundreds of calls a day. It sucks, right? People get hung up on. But don’t care. You move on, and you never talk negatively about anybody.

Nick Schiffer:

I mean, that’s one of the biggest reasons I’ve come back to Buildertrend and I say that, because I started with you guys, and it was just me, and it was like, “This is too much to invest my time in.” But it was the culture, and realizing that the ethos is very similar. But the positivity, that’s so huge. Anyone I’ve ever had to let go from my company was strictly based on attitude.

Paul Wurth:

They were probably talented in some ways.

Nick Schiffer:

Yeah, yeah. It was negativity or not a team player. Whatever it was, it was strictly because of the culture. And that is way harder than being like, “Hey, you suck.”

Tom Houghton:

Yeah, “You screwed this up.”

Nick Schiffer:

It’s like, “No, you’re just kind of mean.”

Paul Wurth:

It’s good.

Nick Schiffer:

Dude, it’s … My team always says it and Molly brings it up all the time. Actually, Nick, we were talking about it-

Paul Wurth:

The other Nick.

Nick Schiffer:

The other Nick.

Tom Houghton:

The other Nick.

Paul Wurth:

That’s his Instagram handle.

Tom Houghton:

Which is such a great-

Nick Schiffer:

I know.

Paul Wurth:

By the way, we talked about you not being a celebrity. I you have to have a employee of yours say, “The other Nick,” it’s pretty much implying that you are.”

Nick Schiffer:

I tell him all the time, I’m like, “If you didn’t check all the boxes in the interview, I would’ve not hired you solely based on fact that your name is Nick.” I didn’t want him to be like, “Hey, it’s Nick from NS Building.”

Paul Wurth:

Right, I get that.

Nick Schiffer:

But he’s a great asset to the team. But we had a issue with … We subbed out a carpenter. Kid came in, talked the talk. Gave him an opportunity. Kept failing. Kept failing. And Nick is like, “Hey, I’m getting mad. This is ridiculous. We’ve given him the opportunity.”

Nick Schiffer:

And I was like, “Hey, listen, man, we all screw up.” Talking to the kid we hired. I’m like, “I get it, man. You’re overwhelmed, whatever the case is. I just want you to … If you need assistance from us to put your best foot forward, tell me what you need,” and just remained positive all the way through, to the point where …

Nick Schiffer:

I ended letting him go. He was overpaid for what he did. We ended up having to rip almost everything up that he did. It’s like, “Well, do you have to ask him for money back,” or, “Do you say something?” I’m like, “No, it wouldn’t benefit him? I get that maybe from a business side, it makes sense. But he took advantage of me, and that’s enough.”

Nick Schiffer:

Short term, sure, I should’ve got money back. But long-term, he’ll just never work with us again. He’ll never have the opportunity to work with us again.” And it’s just remaining positive through the absolute worst.

Paul Wurth:

I am a cynic. That is who I am. That’s how I think about things. So being positive all the time sounds super cheesy to me. But ever since-

Nick Schiffer:

Yeah, but that’s because you think of skipping through the halls, and smiling and giggling, and throwing gumballs at people or something.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, but your point, it’s probably the number-one thing you can do to be a good employee, honestly, probably a good friend, a good husband to your wife. Pretty much everything.

Nick Schiffer:

Yeah. I mean, people love negativity. I mean, what? The number-one podcast is a murder thing. It’s the last thing I want to hear about is murder. But people love it. People love to-

Paul Wurth:

It breeds.

Nick Schiffer:

Yeah. Where it’s like, be different and stay super positive … Stuff sucks. There’s days that I consider, “Why am I doing this?” But I remember, as soon as I flip my mind around, be like, “Stay positive. This isn’t about me. This isn’t about the fact that I’m having a bad day. This is about the 15 people that work for me, the hundreds of people that I get to connect with through social media or the podcast, and that look up to what me and my team are doing, to a point where we’ve helped people grow their business, and realized that it really just takes a little effort to take that next step in confidence.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, there’s a selfishness to negativity, right? You’re only thinking about yourself and how, “I’m affected by … ” Whatever’s happening, you totally block out everything else.

Nick Schiffer:

Yeah. I mean, I get so aggravated by that.

Paul Wurth:

So do I.

Nick Schiffer:

I say that, but okay, cool. I don’t need to hear about it. If you want to talk to me, I’m cool to talk, but there’s nothing I’m going to say to help. I know you’re just trying to vent. And I’ll listen, but we’re not going to have a conversation about it.

Paul Wurth:

For me, it’s the same thing as when you’re driving, and there’s an unaware driver. They’re only focused on them. They don’t know how anything they’re doing is affecting literally everybody else. That is probably the most infuriating thing for me. It’s all the same sort of world.

Tom Houghton:

We took a little detour there.

Paul Wurth:

Jeez.

Tom Houghton:

See that? Detour, car thing.

Paul Wurth:

Oh, that was good.

Tom Houghton:

Snuck that in there. That’s what I’m here for.

Paul Wurth:

I’ll stay positive and say, that was really good, Tom.

Tom Houghton:

Oh, thanks, Paul.

Paul Wurth:

I don’t know about that.

Tom Houghton:

Just really lifted the podcast there.

Nick Schiffer:

There’s the cheesiness.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, there it is. There it is.

Tom Houghton:

Nick, this has been great. I don’t know if the listeners can hear, it’s obviously gotten a little quieter because we’ve talked to you for such a long time. Everyone’s like, “I’ll listen to the podcast.”

Paul Wurth:

Just picture, lights have been turned off.

Tom Houghton:

Exactly. Everybody’s going home, yeah. Nick, thank you so much for being on the podcast and sharing your experience.

Nick Schiffer:

Of course, I appreciate this.

Tom Houghton:

We’ve really enjoyed talking to you and just getting to know you more, more about your business, and just your success has just been phenomenal. So we continue to wish that upon you. All the great work you’re doing for the industry trying to lift it. It’s great stuff.

Nick Schiffer:

I really appreciate that, yeah.

Paul Wurth:

It’s good.

Nick Schiffer:

This one was fire, man.

Paul Wurth:

It’s good.

Tom Houghton:

It’s good.

Paul Wurth:

Appreciate you coming to Omaha.

Nick Schiffer:

Thank you.

Paul Wurth:

We got to have dinner tonight. Let’s go have some beers

Nick Schiffer:

Cool.

Tom Houghton:

That’s good.

Paul Wurth:

All right.

Tom Houghton:

Thanks, take care. Love what you heard? Don’t forget to rate and subscribe to our podcast, so you can hear from more guests that will benefit your business. Also, please check out our show notes page for more information on what we discussed on this episode.

Tom Houghton:

You can find it at buildertrend.com/podcast. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time on “The Building Code.” Appreciate you.

Nick Schiffer | NS Builders


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