Forty Under 40 Pro Remodeler winners: Schloegel Design Remodel and Meridian Design Construction

Tom Houghton:

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

Paul Wurth:

I’m Paul Ward.

Tom Houghton:

We’re going to bring our guest on in just a second but first want to tell you about an exciting opportunity we have, called Buildertrend University on the Road. We’re calling it BTU on the road for short. This will be taking place in Dallas, Texas, on October 3rd, 2019. It’s a one day event for you and your team to learn more and how to optimize your usage of Buildertrend. We have a limited time early bird discount available right now. If you go to the website, Buildertrendu.com/Dallas, You’ll see the limited time pricing there. Depending on when you’re listening to this episode, it might already be gone. As soon as you listen to it, go check it out.

Paul Wurth:

It’s about a third of the price.

Tom Houghton:

Hey, that’s good.

Paul Wurth:

There you go. And you can register there, so more information on the website.

Tom Houghton:

Awesome. Well, great. Check that out. And we’ll dive in here with our guest. On this episode of The Building Code, we’ve got two interviews with winners of the 40 under 40 award from Pro Remodeler Magazine. We’re always proud of our clients’ hard work and we’re pleased to see that about half the group being recognized this year, are Buildertrend clients. The 40 under 40 award is given to young industry professionals who have a stellar reputation for their innovations and accomplishments. According to Pro Remodeler, these individuals are the industry’s future leaders and are the future of the industry itself. First, we’ll have a conversation with Justin Shipp, from Meridian Design Construction based out of Ventura, California. And then following that, we’ll be talking with Charlie Schloegel from Schloegel Design Remodel in Kansas City, Missouri. Lots of discuss on today’s episode, so let’s get started with Justin Shipp.

Paul Wurth:

Hi, Justin, welcome to the podcast.

Justin Shipp:

Thanks for having me.

Paul Wurth:

Tom, why do we have Justin here?

Tom Houghton:

Justin is the recent award winner of the 40 under 40. Congratulations on winning that. And I think also, there’s another award that you guys won.

Justin Shipp:

The REMODELING Big50.

Tom Houghton:

That’s awesome.

Paul Wurth:

That’s a big deal.

Justin Shipp:

Yeah.

Tom Houghton:

That’s a very big deal.

Justin Shipp:

Yeah, thank you.

Paul Wurth:

I’ve heard of the big 50, what actually is the criteria? Is it just a cool company doing cool things or is it revenue or what is it?

Justin Shipp:

I think it’s a multitude of things. You send them a client list and then they use GuildQuality to interview all the clients on the list and get feedback from how you’re doing from a customer service standpoint, they review all of your project photos and your website. And I think one of the things that helped us, is we do something a little different than most remodeling companies, in that we donate 1% of revenue to local charities, typically environmental charities, just to offset the environmental impact of construction in itself. And so I think that that helped us.

Paul Wurth:

Well, that’s awesome in its own right.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

That’s really cool.

Justin Shipp:

Yeah.

Tom Houghton:

And you’ve got a nice little environment to protect out there. You’re based out in Ventura, California.

Justin Shipp:

We’re based on Ventura, yeah.

Tom Houghton:

Serve the surrounding areas there, like Ojai.

Justin Shipp:

We do Ventura, Ojai, Santa Barbara, Montecito. Yeah.

Tom Houghton:

Beautiful area out there.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, it is nice.

Justin Shipp:

It’s a nice place to live. Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

Tell us about … We always ask everybody this. Tell us about your story. What’s your company like size-wise, employees, things like that. What do you guys do?

Justin Shipp:

Sure. We’re a small company right now. It’s just three of us. We should do around 2 million in revenue this year. We’ve been around for 15 years but the business really didn’t get good until I brought my now wife on and about four years ago and she helped implement better systems and processes. And that’s when we started messing around with software like Buildertrend and getting more documented processes and better ways to do things so that we could have a better client experience.

Tom Houghton:

Awesome.

Paul Wurth:

Was she your girlfriend or just an employee when you hired her?

Justin Shipp:

She was my girlfriend. Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

Okay, good. I didn’t know where that story is at, like, “My now wife.”

Tom Houghton:

Right.

Justin Shipp:

No, I didn’t just hire [crosstalk].

Tom Houghton:

It’s interesting hiring practices there.

Justin Shipp:

In a creepy box.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah.

Tom Houghton:

That’s good.

Paul Wurth:

You said 15 years ago. Was it your business because if you’re 40 under 40 … I’m trying to carry the one here, that means you started the business when you were …

Justin Shipp:

Yeah, I was 25 when it started.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, wow.

Justin Shipp:

I’ve been in the industry my whole life. My dad was a plumber. I was digging trenches for him. He would always make me do the worst jobs but when I was 10, I was on job sites. When I was about 24, him and I went into business together as general contractors. And we butted heads a little bit, as fathers and sons do, especially when the son’s in his 20s. And I was like, “I’m going to show you, dad.”

Justin Shipp:

And went out on my own. And that dumb decision led to some good things.

Tom Houghton:

There you go.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. We talk about that leap all the time.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah. It’s interesting because you said … Obviously, you did business a long time without sounds like real good systems in place.

Justin Shipp:

Correct.

Tom Houghton:

Things are working though because obviously, you’re still in business.

Justin Shipp:

They were kind of working but once we started learning, once we started getting educated on how this business should work through guys like Michael Stone and Remodelers Advantage and things like that, we started to learn a better ways to run things.

Tom Houghton:

Awesome.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. And we talk about that all the time. That’s one aspect of it, is to have the knowledge of how I should run it. And then you realize, “Well, I need something to hold all this information and look at report.”

Paul Wurth:

You need a vehicle for it, right.

Justin Shipp:

100%.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. And that’s where Buildertrend and systems like us, come in.

Justin Shipp:

When we started, Buildertrend was just a way for us to schedule jobs and communicate that schedule to clients. That’s really all we used it for. And as we’ve been using it … I still don’t use all the features in Buildertrend because I’m just trying to … We try to just roll them out slowly and learn new things, master something and then move on to the next thing. We’re still not using all the features and it is so integral to our business that I could not run a day without it.

Paul Wurth:

That’s awesome to hear.

Tom Houghton:

That’s really great.

Paul Wurth:

We just like being a part of … Just a small part of success with companies like yours quite honestly.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

It’s really cool for us.

Tom Houghton:

It really means a lot.

Justin Shipp:

You guys are accomplishing that. It’s crazy how … I feel like every week I get an alert that there’s a new feature that just rolled out. And it’s like, “Whoa. Oh, That’s a feature I can totally use.”

Justin Shipp:

It’s not like, “Oh, you’re just rolling out features to roll out features.”

Justin Shipp:

It’s stuff that you can tell that people have given you input that are in the industry and that know this stuff and customers have given you guys input and you’re rolling that stuff out.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah.

Justin Shipp:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

I just listened to one of our podcasts and on the podcast, I think I said like, “Hey, we should ask everybody how they got their name of their business.”

Paul Wurth:

And we have yet to do that since.

Tom Houghton:

We did a good job.

Paul Wurth:

I want to ask, how did your name come about. Where-

Tom Houghton:

Meridian Design, right.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, where’d that come from?

Justin Shipp:

It’s a funny story that takes a couple weird turns. My dad and I’s business was called Craftsmanshipp  because my last name is Shipp and it was clever. And I’m like, “How am I going to come up with something that good?”

Justin Shipp:

I started looking in a thesaurus for … This was back before I was using the internet for that stuff …

Paul Wurth:

Sure.

Justin Shipp:

… in a thesaurus. And the best was either pinnacle or Meridian, means the best.

Paul Wurth:

Oh.

Justin Shipp:

I was just a silly kid who didn’t know what he was doing. And I picked Meridian. Turns out, the place that I was born, which was Mammoth Lakes, California, the street that I was first brought home to where we lived, was Meridian Boulevard. And I didn’t find that out until about 10 years later. It was a roundabout, random coincidence.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

That’s awesome. That is a cool story.

Justin Shipp:

Yeah. I was going to go … I thought about changing at one point to prestige worldwide.

Paul Wurth:

I feel like that’s a rap group.

Tom Houghton:

I do too, yeah.

Paul Wurth:

It’s a rap label.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

Justin Shipp:

It’s a stepbrothers reference.

Paul Wurth:

I recognize that.

Tom Houghton:

Producer Brooke with the reference there.

Justin Shipp:

Good job, Brooke. Good job.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. Good job.

Tom Houghton:

I thought maybe with the Meridian two thing you were going with the maritime, like Shipp. you kept the whole Shipp thing still. I think it still applies.

Justin Shipp:

Yeah, yeah. I didn’t think about that.

Tom Houghton:

Sailing and needing navigation on the Meridian.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah.

Tom Houghton:

I think it’s nice.

Paul Wurth:

Are you guys doing remodel projects there typically or is it ground up?

Justin Shipp:

We specialize in whole house remodels. We will probably start doing some ground ups. We had a couple big fires the last couple of years.

Paul Wurth:

Oh, that’s right. Is that around your area?

Tom Houghton:

Oh, yeah.

Paul Wurth:

Oh, okay.

Justin Shipp:

… here in Ventura where we lost I think 1,500 homes. And then there was one in Malibu last year that we lost another 6 or 700. Building is crazy. We’re starting to get inquiries on new home stuff but we have not started into that yet.

Paul Wurth:

That’s super interesting. I bet there’s a whole group of construction companies there that have really never done ground-up construction because ground was never available, right.

Justin Shipp:

It was super slow.

Paul Wurth:

Right.

Justin Shipp:

There was only a few builders here and a lot of them were building spec homes for sale. And now, a lot of the remodel companies have had to transition into building because there’s just so much of it.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

Right.

Tom Houghton:

There’s a lot of homes there, homes that were built decades ago that definitely need whole house remodeling.

Justin Shipp:

Yeah.

Tom Houghton:

The house costs a fortune but it looks … It’s dated for sure, right.

Justin Shipp:

Yeah.

Tom Houghton:

That’s what’s so crazy about that area. And then you got to come in and you’ve got to gut it and restart but you keep the bones of the house.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, there’s a question. I’ve heard it’s insanely … The building permits and that red tape is crazy there. Is that true?

Justin Shipp:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. Unique to your area, how much longer does it take to do a remodel than say, in Omaha, Nebraska?

Justin Shipp:

Just the planning and permitting process … We’re doing one right now in Santa Barbara that took over a year to get to construction.

Tom Houghton:

Crazy.

Justin Shipp:

Took them a month to do the planning and drawings and all that stuff. And then the permitting process just takes forever.

Paul Wurth:

The other thing I heard is that there’s so many environmental laws there, that you have to do … What, you have to test the soil and maybe do a bunch of extra construction stuff just in that foundation-y type stuff, right.

Justin Shipp:

Yeah, yeah. We have to do all that stuff. And then we also have to do construction waste recycling. All of the construction waste has to go and get sorted and recycled. And I think that’s starting to happen in a lot of areas though.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah and you’ve got … California, they just passed, I think a law about requiring solar to be on all new construction, right.

Paul Wurth:

What?

Justin Shipp:

Yeah.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

You have to have solar.

Justin Shipp:

January first.

Tom Houghton:

Of next year.

Justin Shipp:

… solar on all new construction. And I think in a couple years, they’re going to start adding it to remodels too.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah.

Justin Shipp:

We already have laws that you have to have low flow toilets.

Tom Houghton:

Sure.

Justin Shipp:

You have to have … The energy requirements here are the biggest and hardest.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah, Yeah. Low flow toilets but that also goes to shower heads, the gallons per minute has to be super low, right.

Justin Shipp:

We can’t get a lot of stuff because a lot of fixtures are not California compliant for water usage. And so we can’t get a lot of stuff. They just won’t even ship it to California.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

You’re a small company. I would assume you’re doing the sales then.

Justin Shipp:

Yes.

Paul Wurth:

I’ve always wondered this. How many projects do you … Maybe you look at it in revenue but how many projects do you like to do a year?

Justin Shipp:

25 to 30 typically.

Paul Wurth:

Oh, wow. That’s more than I thought it would be.

Justin Shipp:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

Geez.

Paul Wurth:

25 to 30 then. How many leads do you think you have to manage in a year then, to whittle down to those 25?

Justin Shipp:

We aim for the … A lot of people say that industry standards run … Closing around 33% is a good closing percentage. We probably get … Of the leads that come in, just raw leads that come in, we probably deny 30, 40% of them just because it’s not for fit right off the bat because they don’t have the budget or whatever and …

Paul Wurth:

We talked about that a lot. There’s a qualification process in this business. Super important or you’re just chasing things that …

Justin Shipp:

Well, there’s also … The component is there are some nightmare clients out there.

Paul Wurth:

Right.

Justin Shipp:

And you have to have what’s called a red flag system, where we have a list of red flags. And if they got more than one or two red flags, it’s a no go.

Tom Houghton:

I want to dive into that.

Paul Wurth:

That’s super interesting. I think the other fellow builders, remodelers would love to hear this.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

I was just going to ask you like, “Okay, yeah. A nightmare client.”

Paul Wurth:

… but how do you identify that? And you guys have some … Throughout the years, you’ve just built this list of things and it’s one or two of those. And then we’ll just see later, right.

Tom Houghton:

Would you mind sharing some of those?

Justin Shipp:

I’ve built it and that I’ve actually talked to other guys. And we recently had one where we missed some of the red flags because we weren’t paying attention. And we liked the project and it turned into a really stressful thing where I was losing sleep over it. Some of the red flags, they fired their previous contract tractor.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, I’ve heard that one before.

Justin Shipp:

That’s a huge red flag. That’s a huge red flag because 50% of the time, it’s because the contractor was not that great. And 50% of the times, it’s because the client had maybe probably unrealistic expectations.

Paul Wurth:

Sure.

Justin Shipp:

If they have an air of entitlement and superiority, that’s always not great. Another big one is, “I would do this myself but I just don’t have the time.”

Justin Shipp:

That means that they don’t really respect you or your time, you’re just a piece in a puzzle for them and it’s not going to work.

Paul Wurth:

I’ve heard that one too in software. It’s unbelievable how many construction companies would say that to us.

Justin Shipp:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

“I would build this myself but I just don’t have the time.”

Justin Shipp:

Yeah.

Tom Houghton:

Build the software. Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

We have 500 employees to build this software.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

Justin Shipp:

They don’t respect what we bring to the table if they’re saying things like that.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

That’s a really cool concept.

Tom Houghton:

That’s a good list.

Paul Wurth:

The red flag list.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

Justin Shipp:

Yeah but it’s weird because you got to keep it on the down low and go … You can’t really tell people.

Paul Wurth:

Right exactly.

Tom Houghton:

You didn’t make the cut.

Justin Shipp:

We’ve got red flags here.

Paul Wurth:

Right, that was going to be a follow-up question. How do you exit? How do you stop working with somebody?

Justin Shipp:

We’ll typically send a letter that says, “Hey, we were really appreciate your inquiry. While we’re excited about the prospect of doing business with you, at this time, we’re going to have to deny it because we have this, this and this going on.”

Justin Shipp:

And sometimes it is just a scheduling thing where some project came through and we have to move on. That happens often too, where it’s just like, “This one is not a good fit and so we’re just going to move on because of scheduling.”

Justin Shipp:

… but sometimes it’s because client is just … Seems like they’re going to be too difficult to deal with.

Paul Wurth:

Let’s go back to that. A hundred leads, 30, 40% just qualification out the door.

Justin Shipp:

Yeah, yeah.

Paul Wurth:

Then you’re 60 leads and so …

Justin Shipp:

Yeah. And so we want to book 33% of those 60.

Paul Wurth:

We talk about this a lot. Do you try to set a meeting? Your next step is like, “Hey, let’s meet and let’s talk about the project.”

Paul Wurth:

Or what is it?

Justin Shipp:

The initial thing is about a 20-, 25-minute phone call and my wife does that. She just goes through … She knows budgets so well that she can listen to them, talk on the phone and go, “Here’s what I think that’s probably going to cost .”

Justin Shipp:

And she gauges their reaction. Is that something they can work with? Is it not? We can screen that way. And then there’s a job walk and initial estimate, typically … This is a more recent thing, we’re charging for that. We charge about 150 to $250 to go on the job walk. It just gives us a little bit of, “Are they serious or not?”

Justin Shipp:

And if we know they’re serious, they’re going to pay that. We’ll go do the job walk and then we’ll build them out an initial budget, what we would expect to pay for a project like this and what we’ve charged before for this type of project. It’s usually pretty accurate. It’s within about 5% of what we usually end up with, unless the architect changes something major. And then once we go to a design phase, then we have a design fee that’s … We do a design fee that’s fully refundable if they go through with construction with us. The design fee will be 3% of the project costs. And then that’s fully refundable if they proceed to construction with us. If they don’t, we keep it for our time.

Paul Wurth:

Right.

Justin Shipp:

And in that phase, we start specifying materials and getting it tightened down. And then we submit a new estimate based on what the actual stuff being used is and that goes to the contract.

Paul Wurth:

Got it. And then you go to contract, then you go to production.

Justin Shipp:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

Right. Cool, so you’re shooting for 33%. I swear to God, Josh Kaiser, our VP of sales and I, did a class yesterday at BTU about that. And we were like, “Basically, 35% is what you should … “

Tom Houghton:

Yeah, 35 is … That was the number he threw out.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah.

Tom Houghton:

It’s right there.

Paul Wurth:

That’s great.

Justin Shipp:

A lot of people say if you’re missing that number, you’re … If you’re not getting 33%, either price is too high or your sales processes isn’t good.

Paul Wurth:

Process, yeah.

Justin Shipp:

That’s what we typically find.

Paul Wurth:

That’s awesome. Do you guys offer financing at all?

Justin Shipp:

We don’t but you guys released the Rocket Loans the other day.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, yeah.

Justin Shipp:

And we were just talking about thinking about maybe offering financing because we do get inquiries about it and I’ve done some research on it and never found anything that I thought was reliable but I think the trust that we have in everything you guys have done pushes it to, “Well, this is a no-brainer. If we want to do this, we can do it through you guys.”

Paul Wurth:

That’s good to hear.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

Justin Shipp:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

… because it’s just so interesting that … Remodeling, if I was doing one and they offered me 0% for 12 months, why wouldn’t you do that?

Tom Houghton:

Right.

Paul Wurth:

And then I would spend more too.

Tom Houghton:

Right. Yeah, exactly. It does free the client up a little bit cash wise.

Justin Shipp:

Yeah, yeah.

Paul Wurth:

Good, more to come about that.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

Justin Shipp:

Yeah. We’re pumped on it.

Paul Wurth:

Good.

Justin Shipp:

We’re going to do some more research on that and figure out how we can implement that.

Paul Wurth:

That’s awesome.

Tom Houghton:

We’ll make sure to put all this stuff in the show notes too, like the red flag stuff.

Paul Wurth:

We now know why you’re 40 under 40 and big 50.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah. You have proven yourself worthy of this.

Justin Shipp:

Oh, thank you.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time and joining us on the podcast today and we’ll make sure we put it into a link to your Instagram so we can see those pictures of you winning the award.

Justin Shipp:

Perfect.

Tom Houghton:

That’d be awesome.

Justin Shipp:

Awesome.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. We got to get you up to Omaha sometime, get out of that terrible weather you have.

Justin Shipp:

I agree. I agree. It just seems so temperate and nice there.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. All right, Justin.

Justin Shipp:

Thanks for having me, I appreciate it.

Paul Wurth:

Appreciate you, man.

Tom Houghton:

All right. What a great conversation with Justin. I am very excited to transition now into our next guest who’s joining us. Again, a 40 under 40 winner. Let’s talk to Charlie Schloegel. Charlie is the co-owner of Schloegel Design and Remodeling, based in Kansas City, Missouri. Welcome, Charlie.

Charlie Schloegel:

Well, thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be on the show.

Paul Wurth:

Hello, Charlie. We were just talking, you’ve been a Buildertrend client for five years now and we are really happy to see that you and a handful of others were on the 40 under 40 list this year.

Charlie Schloegel:

Yeah, it was an honor to be chosen and even … An honor and a surprise, I’ll say that.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. And as I said previous, it’s an honor just to be under 40 at this point, right.

Charlie Schloegel:

Yeah, exactly. I’ve got about four and a half more years.

Tom Houghton:

There you go. Let’s talk a little bit about your team. Can you give us an insight into your business?

Charlie Schloegel:

Yeah. The company was started in 1980 by my father, Jake. And in 2018, my partner, Chris Peterson and myself bought the business from Jake. Chris had been with the company for … Oh, just at 20 years. And I had been involved with the company since ’14 and actually worked under Chris on several projects. It’s good to now be on an equal playing field. There was a lot of times I moved piles of lumber for him, I think just to move piles of lumber. We in 2018 took over and I started with the company back in 2011 and came in to focus on developing and building our handyman service and took that from myself and one team member, Kirk Thomas, to now, we have a team of 15 people on our handyman service that are involved in sales and estimating and production. And Kirk has risen to the ranks of production manager for our handyman service.

Charlie Schloegel:

We’re a full-service design, build, remodeling company. We have a handyman service and we have a paint department. We’re a team of 70 individuals. We just crested 70 team members as of last week. And we have people on staff ranging from carpenters, lead carpenters, tile setters, painters, other trades, to project managers, production managers, two degreed on staff architects, a drafter and several designers, 12 designers and then our administrative team.

Tom Houghton:

That’s quite the team.

Charlie Schloegel:

Yeah, yeah. We’ve grown from … Oh, when my dad was in the basement, just him and being a general contractor to now, offering those three different lines of services and have a showroom here in Kansas City, Missouri, that we do a lot of our selections and design development in for our design-build projects and use a lot of trade partner showrooms as well.

Paul Wurth:

It’s really unique that you guys have those two divisions. I have to imagine, as you grow as a general contractor, especially in remodeling, you have thoughts of, “Boy, it probably makes sense for you to bring my carpenters in-house or painters in-house or start a handyman division because there’s so much of that handyman work out there.”

Paul Wurth:

What are some of the concerns that a business that you guys had before you went all in on a handyman division or even a paint division?

Charlie Schloegel:

Well, our main focus at this company, our company mission is to provide the ultimate client experience. And it’s something we talk about on an hourly level, a daily level. We’re not just putting it in writing and forgetting about it. One of the most difficult things to maintain with growth, is to ensure that we’re continuing to provide that, as new people come on board that may not be assimilated yet into our culture but we work hard to bring them up through orientations to make sure they know what the ultimate client experience is in the opinion of Schloegel Design Remodel and how to achieve providing that.

Tom Houghton:

You won this award, which is fantastic. What’s life been like afterwards?

Charlie Schloegel:

Well, there was a parade down main street a few weeks ago, you guys missed it. You’re not far, I’m surprised they didn’t get the message up to Omaha.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

Charlie Schloegel:

Yeah, I’d walk in and …

Paul Wurth:

I saw the spotlights.

Charlie Schloegel:

Dinners are on the house. I got a thing to do at Arrowhead on opening day, a lot of big stuff but it’s been fun. It’s been fun to share. We’ve put it out on our social media. We celebrated it here at the company and talked about what it was and what we’re doing. We do quarterly, all meets where all the team members from the company get together and talk about success stories. We’ll be doing that in our next all meet. We haven’t had one since this but it’s positivity out there. Again, in the world we live in today where you can find bad news just as quickly as you want it, it’s good out there that’s going on. It’s people connecting with people. In my 40 under 40, I was big on …

Charlie Schloegel:

Remodeling companies are all about the people. This is not a product that a machine can manufacture with repetition. There’s a lot of human dynamic and as I mentioned earlier, communication that goes on. It’s just been fun to share it with people and talk about it. And then of course, a pat on the back is always fun. And I’m usually not the one that’s … I try to give more pats than I get. It’s been nice to get it and hear people saying that they’re proud of the achievements that we’ve accomplished in the year and a half that we’ve taken over. It’s been all good things.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. That’s really cool. You keep mentioning or alluding to your culture there. And I think that seems like something very important to you. That is a very hot topic. Whenever we have Buildertrend University each month, we have about 75 companies that come to our office and walk our hallways and see the culture we have and they ask us that question. Seems like you guys have a good culture there, are there just a few tips that you could give other companies that are listening too, who maybe want to build their culture so that A, they can keep the people they like longer and they can deliver that right message every time, that great quality of customer service. I guess what got me to ask you that is that quarterly meeting idea or that quarterly outing. That’s something that’s simple but people don’t think about. Are there other things that you guys do?

Charlie Schloegel:

Well, I think it’s important for any company to identify what they want their culture to be. And it is hard to put that maybe into words but using a word or a phrase and then using the vision and the mission and setting goals that are in line with your culture and then measuring those. Did you achieve those goals? Are you working towards the vision and the mission? And measuring that. If you do those, if you can set those goals, if you can set a mission and a vision and you can measure toward it, I think you can start to develop a strong culture that can be disseminated through you to others. And I would like to take the credit for that but I would say my dad and the team members before me really laid the groundwork for that. It’s my and Chris’s job and our team member’s job to continue carrying that on and disseminating what that culture is throughout our company as we continue to grow.

Charlie Schloegel:

To me, the culture is something that we hear quite a bit when we are talking with team members about what retains them here or why they considered joining this team, is because they hear that we have a strong culture. We get referrals from our current team members for their friends or family or people that they know that want to come be a part of our team. Yeah, it’s very important here. We talk about it regularly.

Tom Houghton:

That’s great.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, it sounds like the theme is, it’s not just something you set in a company playbook, you got to continually speak to it and work on it, right.

Charlie Schloegel:

Absolutely, yeah. It’s got to be brought up on a regular basis. Again, I mentioned to you our mission of providing that ultimate client experience. We talk about that again, hourly. And we talk about what it means and are we doing that? How are we doing that? And we talk about … We have our internal and external clients. When we say ultimate client experience, we’re not talking just about our clients that are hiring us to do handyman, painting or remodeling. We’re talking about our team members that are on staff here and our subcontractor partners, our vendor partners, to make sure that they’re buying into what we’re doing and how we’re doing it.

Tom Houghton:

That’s great. Yeah. We’ve mentioned it before on the podcast, plan, measure, adjust. You got to make sure everybody’s roped in on the vision of the company. And it sounds like you guys are doing that, are doing a great job of that, so congratulations to you guys. We wish you continued success in your business. We’ll wrap up here with you. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today and joining us.

Charlie Schloegel:

Thanks for having me. And I look forward to talking with you all in the future.

Paul Wurth:

Is there a 50 under 50? Why do we stop at 40?

Tom Houghton:

The list just gets longer as you go.

Paul Wurth:

Quite honestly, I think …

Tom Houghton:

60 under 60, 70 under 70.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, I just feel like they’re …

Charlie Schloegel:

Don’t tell Chris that. He’ll try to apply for 60 under 60.

Tom Houghton:

There you go. Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

We’ll keep it from Chris.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah, we won’t tell him. Don’t forget to check out our show notes page. I will put a link into your website and to the article from Pro Remodeler, with the award in there. Congratulations again and thanks for your time today.

Charlie Schloegel:

Hey, thank you all. And best of luck in the future with Buildertrend, it’s a great thing you guys are doing. Thanks for bringing some technology to the industry.

Tom Houghton:

Thanks.

Paul Wurth:

Thanks, Charlie. Appreciate you.

Tom Houghton:

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

Paul Wurth:

Appreciate you.