Behind the mask: What Reclaimed Karma built before anyone was watching

Carly Ward (00:00:01):

I’m gonna really try to not be a dork and do that. I like it. What’s up, guys?

Jordan Coolidge (00:00:12):

Hello.

Chris Johnson (00:00:14):

What up? Hey.

Carly Ward (00:00:15):

How

Chris Johnson (00:00:15):

We doing?

Yvonne Johnson (00:00:16):

Hi. We were on the wrong – Just

Chris Johnson (00:00:18):

Hanging out with Microsoft for a little bit. <laugh>

Carly Ward (00:00:21):

Yeah. My favorite pastime. Yeah.

Yvonne Johnson (00:00:23):

<laugh> We were like, what? Well, then we got in a conversation with each other and then kind of were like, [00:00:30] “This has been a while.” I think not be on the right line. <laugh>

Jordan Coolidge (00:00:35):

Yep. Story Of my life.

Carly Ward (00:00:37):

Well, it’s great to finally meet you guys. I feel like Jordan and I both know you from all the content that you’ve done with us over the years – Yeah. But I don’t think we’ve officially met. Um, my name’s Carly. I’m a customer marketing manager at Buildertrend and, uh, part-time podcast host. So <laugh> I’m, I’m

Jordan Coolidge (00:00:53):

Jordan.

Chris Johnson (00:00:54):

Carly Ward?

Carly Ward (00:00:55):

Carly Ward, yes. Yeah.

Jordan Coolidge (00:00:57):

I’m

Carly Ward (00:00:57):

Jordan.

Yvonne Johnson (00:00:58):

That’s like a podcast name.

Jordan Coolidge (00:00:59):

Yeah, it is. [00:01:00] She’s got a much better podcastname for sure.

Carly Ward (00:01:02):

I changed it specifically for the Gig.

Chris Johnson (00:01:04):

If you move to Atlanta, we would call you C-Dub. Uh,

Jordan Coolidge (00:01:07):

Not the first time I’ve been called that. That’s

Chris Johnson (00:01:09):

Right. Right. There you go. Mm-hmm.

Jordan Coolidge (00:01:11):

Uh, I, I work in our CS department, so I work as a principal customer success manager, which really just means I kind of fill in when people are out. I help train our new hires. So my, my job responsibilities are kind of –

Yvonne Johnson (00:01:25):

Endless.

Jordan Coolidge (00:01:26):

Yeah. I –

Chris Johnson (00:01:27):

Thank you for your service, sir. <laugh>

Jordan Coolidge (00:01:29):

Thank you. [00:01:30] I always describe it as like, I know a fair amount about our customers and I know a fair amount about our products, so however that can be used is kind of on the table. So it’s, it’s kind of a, a fun, fun work week each week. It’s kind of a different flavor each time. So I call the – And you

Yvonne Johnson (00:01:44):

Do the podcast

Jordan Coolidge (00:01:46):

Too? Yeah. And, uh, recently recently been asked to, to help guests, get, co-host, uh, the podcast, so. Wow.

Yvonne Johnson (00:01:53):

It’s

Jordan Coolidge (00:01:54):

Awesome.

Chris Johnson (00:01:54):

Okay. So we have two things before we get started.

Jordan Coolidge (00:01:56):

Oh, I like it. I know.

Chris Johnson (00:01:58):

Okay. All right. So the first thing is, [00:02:00] we are 99.9% residential. Oh, oh. So the commercial like Bluebeam question, we were like crickets. <laugh>

Jordan Coolidge (00:02:12):

We won’t

Carly Ward (00:02:12):

Ask that. Forget about them. We won’t ask

Yvonne Johnson (00:02:15):

That. But we’ve never used –

Chris Johnson (00:02:17):

We

Yvonne Johnson (00:02:17):

Haven’t yet. We were like, well, that probably would’ve been helpful.

Jordan Coolidge (00:02:20):

<laugh> Yeah.

Yvonne Johnson (00:02:22):

Yeah.

Jordan Coolidge (00:02:22):

We’ll scratch that. Yeah.

Chris Johnson (00:02:25):

That was the one thing. And then the second thing just came up. Are you related to Calvin Coolidge?

Jordan Coolidge (00:02:29):

You [00:02:30] know, very distantly. Uh, very distantly, yes. My, in fact, my grandpa’s name, he’s now passed away, but my grandpa’s name was Calvin actually, uh – Wow. In, in, in honor of the president. So yeah. Um, but yeah, we, we actually did a little, uh, family tree exercise and, uh, very loosely related, but yes, technically a part of the same tree, so.

Chris Johnson (00:02:52):

Very distinct name. <laugh>

Jordan Coolidge (00:02:53):

Humble brag over here. <laugh> My one claim to fame is the 30th, I’m related to the 30th president by [00:03:00] about five different layers. Pretty awesome. Nice.

Chris Johnson (00:03:04):

That’s pretty great.

Carly Ward (00:03:06):

Um, well, you guys have a pretty cool story. You know, I was kind of brushing up on you guys. Um, not, not really the blueprint for, uh, residential construction.

Chris Johnson (00:03:18):

No. <laugh> But here we are. Here we are. But here we are.

Carly Ward (00:03:23):

Bigger and badder than ever.

Yvonne Johnson (00:03:25):

That’s right. Oh, boy. Yeah. It’s been a journey. It’s been a bit. It’s been a journey. Been a journey.

Carly Ward (00:03:30):

[00:03:30] Yeah. Uh, if you don’t mind – We’re

Yvonne Johnson (00:03:32):

Still married. Carly, we’re still married too.

Carly Ward (00:03:35):

I mean, that’s a testament. If you can get through that, anything.

Chris Johnson (00:03:39):

Unbreakable.

Carly Ward (00:03:41):

Well, I wouldn’t mind just like hearing, you, you know, you don’t have to get in, too far into the weeds, but I always like, you know, hearing the side of the story from you guys instead of just, you know, what I’m reading through, through our text. If you wanna walk me through it just a little bit, I’d love to hear it.

Chris Johnson (00:03:55):

Okay. We’ll try to make it short because it can get very long. I

Carly Ward (00:03:58):

Bet.

Chris Johnson (00:03:59):

Yeah. The [00:04:00] short version is we bought a home and we were house poor when we bought the house. And so in order to furnish the house, um, Yvonne started like painting furniture in the garage and whatnot. Mm-hmm. Um, and I wasn’t handy at all by any means. No tools or anything like that. But –

Yvonne Johnson (00:04:20):

Actually, the first time my dad came to visit to kind of check out who I was like spending my time with, Chris asked him to help him change a light [00:04:30] and my dad – Had a bulb, had

Chris Johnson (00:04:31):

A light bulb, a

Yvonne Johnson (00:04:32):

Fixture. Luckily. But it was a flush mount. <laugh> But it was a flush mount fixture. Yeah. Like a boob light. Yeah. And my dad was like, I know this is not – 100% discussed. Like he didn’t leave me. He’s gonna have to learn. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway.

Chris Johnson (00:04:48):

I grew up in apartments, so – Yeah. You know, that part. Um, so anyway, so we bought the home. I wasn’t handy. Yvonne started looking at tutorials online of how to like paint furniture. So we started kinda dumpster diving

Yvonne Johnson (00:05:00):

[00:05:00] To – We were house poor.

Chris Johnson (00:05:01):

To furnish the ho – the home, right? And then she found a table that she liked that Restoration Hardware. And I was like, “Absolutely not. We cannot afford that table.” I said, “I can build it.” A lot. And so, um, I’m the type of person that if I see it, then I know I can, I can do it, right? So went and found a pallet, broke the pallet down, made a coffee table out of a pallet, and she was so excited and proud that she posted it on Facebook. [00:05:30] And somebody asked like, “Hey, um, is that table for sale?” And Yvonne was like, “No.” No? And I was like, “Absolutely.”

Yvonne Johnson (00:05:37):

Like…

Chris Johnson (00:05:40):

So we sold it for like $500. And at the time, I was in sales with PepsiCo. And so I started doing the math of like, man, that pallet was free. We spent maybe like $30 on materials, you know, to, to trick it out. I was like, okay, new business, got a workshop in the garage. So [00:06:00] the garage turned into basically a sweatshop. <laugh> So we started selling like pallet furniture. Yvonne started selling, um, painted furniture and then we started taking custom orders and people would ask us, “Hey, can you do this, these little like remodeling jobs, just little small jobs around their house?” And we were like, “Eh, we don’t really feel comfortable with it.” So we decided to hire a contractor to help us remodel our home. And we were like, “Oh, we’ll learn [00:06:30] from him on how to do it.” And then maybe that’s something we’ll get into or maybe we’ll start flipping houses and be like Chip and Joanna.

Chris Johnson (00:06:36):

I’ll be chocolate chip and she’ll be Joanna, right? <laugh> So, so, so we, we, we hire the contractor, he gets in and he tells us –

Yvonne Johnson (00:06:47):

Hold on. He pulled up in a- A sports

Chris Johnson (00:06:49):

Car.

Yvonne Johnson (00:06:50):

Sports car.

Chris Johnson (00:06:50):

Pulled up in a sports

Yvonne Johnson (00:06:51):

Car. Problem number one.

Chris Johnson (00:06:52):

He pulled up with brand new tools. He was ripping everything out the plastic, Ryobi tools, mind you, ripping everything out the plastic. And we’re like, [00:07:00] “Oh, this is great.” And he, and he gave us a, a bid for it on like a one-pager that was like –

Yvonne Johnson (00:07:05):

To renovate our whole kitchen. Our whole kitchen. Really our whole main floor of our house. Take out the walls.

Chris Johnson (00:07:10):

Two, two walls. Take out two

Yvonne Johnson (00:07:12):

Walls –

Chris Johnson (00:07:12):

Yeah. For $4,800.

Yvonne Johnson (00:07:15):

$4,800.

Chris Johnson (00:07:16):

And we were like, “I, I think he’s trying to get over on this. We don’t know.” <laugh> But so we wrote him a check for the $4,800. And lo and behold, we go into Christmas Eve and we’re about to leave to go out of town and [00:07:30] we were supposed to put a beam up, talk about that a little later, supposed to put a beam up that I made to hold up our house. And he was like nowhere to be found. And so I hit the roof and I fired him. And Yvonne is crying on Christmas Eve. And she’s like, “We’re never gonna get our house finished.” And I was like, “I’ll figure it out. I’ll figure it out.” So from there, I started learning how to do the framing, um, building our cabinets because he told us we couldn’t buy cabinets. We had to get custom cabinets.

Yvonne Johnson (00:07:59):

Yeah. Even

Chris Johnson (00:07:59):

Though we just [00:08:00] could’ve walked into Home Depot at that point in time and just bought cabinets. But we didn’t know. So learned how to build cabinets, learn how to run the electrical, learn how to do the plumbing, learn pretty much everything. And one of our friends was like, “Oh, this is hilarious.” And she writes for different networks and movies and stuff. And she said, “We’re gonna have somebody call you and just say yes to whatever questions they ask you.” And so they said, “You guys have a bustling furni- furniture business throughout Atlanta.” And that was… We were like, “Yeah, we do.” ‘Cause at that [00:08:30] point in time, we had did almost, probably like a quarter million over the course of like three, four years – Wow. Out of our garage. We were moving a lot of furniture. Impressive. Facebook Market and Craigslist. We were. <laugh> Booming.

Chris Johnson (00:08:42):

As we say, we were trapping out of our garage. <laugh> So, so then they were like, “So you guys do renovations and use reclaimed materials?” And we’re like,

Yvonne Johnson (00:08:52):

“Yeah. No.”

Chris Johnson (00:08:55):

They were like, “Great. So we’re gonna come out, shoot a sizzle with you.” They shot a sizzle. While we were [00:09:00] walking around our little, um, city square, we walked past the actual construction site. Guy comes out, we start talking. He’s a licensed general contractor. We exchange information. Couple months go by after the sizzle was turned into HGTV, DIY

Yvonne Johnson (00:09:15):

Network. We were like, “We’re never gonna hear from HGTV because they have got to know that we don’t know what we’re doing.” The FOS. We do not have a renovation company. Chris works at a regular job. This is… They’re gonna know. They’re gonna [00:09:30] know.

Chris Johnson (00:09:30):

They’re never gonna know. No one’s <laugh>. They were like, “We love it. You guys gotta chill.” <laugh> So we were like –

Carly Ward (00:09:37):

Deer

Chris Johnson (00:09:37):

In

Carly Ward (00:09:38):

Headlights? Yes.

Yvonne Johnson (00:09:39):

So they said we’re gonna be renovating somebody’s home. So we were like, “Can we cast the family?” ‘Cause we’re thinking if we can cast a family, we’ll try to find somebody that knows us and knows that we don’t know what we’re doing and everybody’s in on it. So we gave them so many different people who wanted their homes [00:10:00] gutted and remodeled, and they didn’t choose any of them. No. They chose their own person. It was a all-American beautiful family with kids – Yep. And the most jacked up house I’ve ever seen in my life. <laugh> And they dropped us in it and was like, “Do what you do.” Yeah. And we don’t do anything. So –

Chris Johnson (00:10:18):

Right.

Yvonne Johnson (00:10:18):

We don’t know how to do anything.

Chris Johnson (00:10:21):

Anything. So I called the general contractor that I met and I was like, “Hey, got a little opportunity here. Would you be open to working with us for this show?” [00:10:30] He was like, “Sounds like fun.” Never got a contract from him or anything like that. We just handshake and two days before I called him was like, “Hey, you still available for this show?” He was like, “Yep, I’ll be there tomorrow. Uh, I’ll be there this week.” So we get to the set, he pulls up

Yvonne Johnson (00:10:46):

This trailer. Mind you, there’s like 30 to 50 people. Members that have came in from all around the country to film us for at least a month – uh-huh. In this family’s home – uh-huh. That were renovating their entire house. [00:11:00] We don’t know how to do –

Chris Johnson (00:11:02):

Anything.

Yvonne Johnson (00:11:02):

Anything.

Chris Johnson (00:11:03):

But Daryl Sims, shout out SPM Solutions in Marietta. He shows up. He pulls up, he shows up, and for a month, he would tell me what to say off camera, and then I would get on camera and I would be like, “Yeah, we need to move this up there and do this around here,” whatnot. And Yvonne was just in the back like, “Yeah, this is how we do this.”

Yvonne Johnson (00:11:22):

And at home I was crying every night. I was like, “They’re gonna know, this is so terrible.” Like sweating

Carly Ward (00:11:28):

Through your shirts on, on camera. [00:11:30] <laugh>

Chris Johnson (00:11:31):

Exactly. It was – So it, so it aired maybe four or five times. It didn’t get picked up for actual season. I think because the name, people though we were in like Reno. Reno. ‘Cause it was called reclaim. Because reclaimed Reno. Reno, but they though it was Reno. Mm-hmm. And so we were getting calls from the West Coast. We were getting calls

Yvonne Johnson (00:11:48):

From – Do you think that’s why they didn’t pick us up? Or do you think they didn’t pick us up because they were like –

Chris Johnson (00:11:53):

These guys are trash. <laugh> No. Maybe it was a little bit of both. I don’t know. But we crushed, we did. We crushed the renovation.

Yvonne Johnson (00:12:00):

[00:12:00] We think we

Chris Johnson (00:12:00):

Did. It looked really good and people were calling us all

Yvonne Johnson (00:12:04):

Around. All around the

Chris Johnson (00:12:04):

Country. Um, and a lot of people in our hometown, Marietta and Atlanta, were asking us to come do renovations. And so along that path, Darryl continued to work with us as we would get business come in and he

Yvonne Johnson (00:12:17):

Just

Chris Johnson (00:12:17):

Host us

Yvonne Johnson (00:12:18):

Up. Chris’s mentor. Came

Chris Johnson (00:12:19):

My mentor, stayed under him for about three, four years, and then went and sat for the actual test here in Georgia and got my, my license. And so now we’ve caught up with [00:12:30] the business, so to say. But our first client ever was on national television. That’s

Carly Ward (00:12:35):

Incredible. What a Cinderella story. <laugh> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that is so cool. I mean, like, I feel for you, Yvonne. Like I am, I would be in the, I’d, I’d be like running into the truck crying and like, “What are we doing? The imposter syndrome had to be

Yvonne Johnson (00:12:52):

High.” I mean, honestly Charlie, that’s how it felt. Like Chris was thriving. Yep. Chris was thriving. Like he had a full-time job [00:13:00] that he went in and took a leave of absence from that job and told the job that he was taking the leave of absence to help his wife in her little furniture hobby that she was doing something on TV. He got, he was, and it was all non-truths. He was thriving in the chaos and I was –

Carly Ward (00:13:23):

Hanging on by a thread.

Yvonne Johnson (00:13:28):

What did I, who did I marry?

Chris Johnson (00:13:29):

The [00:13:30] picture was like we, we were on a roller coaster and I was calm. You know when they take the little picture when people go down the hill? I was just like this on the roller coaster. And Yvonne was like this. He was like this the whole time. But you know, I was chill going up in the hill. Terrible. I don’t, I thrive in chaos. I do. I thrive in chaos.

Carly Ward (00:13:46):

Well, clearly you guys have a, a, a beautiful partnership that has, you know, e- extended to this point. And, you know, I know you guys have kind of branched into other partnerships with Home Depot and you’re just continuing [00:14:00] to thrive. So I think there’s probably many people out there that can relate back to a story, maybe not quite as, uh, crazy as yours, but I’m sure that there’s a lot of people out there that have been in a similar situation and, uh, I can confidently say almost everybody listening, uh, would say they felt some level of imposter syndrome. Um, but amazing that you guys were up against such a huge milestone project right in the beginning and just screw it full speed ahead. [00:14:30] We’re doing it.

Yvonne Johnson (00:14:31):

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Chris Johnson (00:14:32):

I will say I have to give us kudos as a couple. Like when our back is up against the wall, whether it’s family matters, life or whatever, you know, we do, we pull together. We fight. We fight for a good little minute about it. Yeah, just a little bit. We fight, but then we pull it together and we always put our best foot forward and we tend to come out on top. Yeah. So. That’s awesome.

Carly Ward (00:14:55):

Well, before we start diving into the nitty-gritty of, of all of it, [00:15:00] um, we’ve got a little game that we’re gonna play. Um, I don’t know if you can tell, we’ve got a little bit of a spooky set, um, in the back for October. Um, they did provide us these hats, but I got a big old head and these, uh, these, these, my, these ears aren’t helping me. So, um, but what we’re gonna have you guys do, um, we’re doing kind of like a two truths and a tall tale. Um, so we want you, uh, both of you to give us three kind of like [00:15:30] horror stories, although you’ve already kind of provided one for us. <laugh> Uh, but, uh, three horror stories, two that are true, uh, one that is false and we’re gonna try and, uh, decipher which is fact or fic- fiction.

Chris Johnson (00:15:44):

Gotcha. Okay.

Carly Ward (00:15:47):

And this can, and this can be like, you know, you found something weird behind a wall. Um, what, whatever speaks to you. I’m sure you got some stories.

Yvonne Johnson (00:16:00):

[00:16:00] Yes. So one would be that we were renovating a client’s bathroom, their primary bathroom on the second floor of their home. Mm-hmm. And somebody failed to turn off the water during the renovation, during the demo day, during the demo day. Mm-hmm. And hit a pipe and flooded the enti – [00:16:30] the entire main floor of the client’s home that we had just renovated –

Chris Johnson (00:16:38):

Yeah.

Yvonne Johnson (00:16:39):

About six months before. Yeah. That’s one. A second one would be –

Chris Johnson (00:16:44):

Um, the powers?

Yvonne Johnson (00:16:47):

Yeah.

Chris Johnson (00:16:47):

Yeah. All right. So we had a, this is one of our first, like, high-end kitchens renovations that we did. And we were installing a 48-inch wolf range – [00:17:00] uh-huh. In this home, um, against this beautiful marble that our client had selected that was, like, she wanted to find the whitest of the white marble. She wanted an all-white kitchen. And so, because I didn’t feel comfortable with installing the range by myself, we actually outsourced it and had a company come in to, you know, install the, the range. And he showed up by himself, and he was trying to shove the 48-inch range [00:17:30] into that slot by himself. And I was on the other side of the, the, the kitchen doing something. I was like, “Hey, man, you need some help?” He was like, “No, I got it in.” And I went around the corner and saw that he had chipped the corner of the stone of this marble.

Chris Johnson (00:17:45):

And I was like, “You gotta be kidding me, bro.” So we put in a claim for it, and we couldn’t figure out, like, why we never could get any, like, feedback on the claim or something. It was just taking forever, [00:18:00] so we ended up having to go above him. Come to find out, the reason why we didn’t get a response is because shortly after that incident happened, he was found in his apartment deceased. Oh.

Yvonne Johnson (00:18:13):

Happy Halloween.

Chris Johnson (00:18:14):

So, yeah.

Yvonne Johnson (00:18:15):

That’s number two.

Chris Johnson (00:18:17):

Yeah.

Yvonne Johnson (00:18:18):

Number three is we had a commercial job where the client… We were doing FF&E for a commercial job, and the client, [00:18:30] um, received an email from the furniture company asking for the client to pay them the remaining balance of the furniture, which was $140,000. And they remitted the payment to the account that was in the email, and come to find out it was a spam email.

Chris Johnson (00:18:54):

Yeah,

Yvonne Johnson (00:18:56):

The supplier got hacked. And the supplier got hacked, and we, because it was [00:19:00] our client through us, we had to pay $140,000 back to our client. Happy Halloween. <laugh> That

Jordan Coolidge (00:19:10):

Sound great.

Carly Ward (00:19:12):

I’m gonna say with the level of detail that was in the second and third, I’m gonna say the first is, is, uh, a tale.

Jordan Coolidge (00:19:22):

I’m, I’m very much with you on, there’s no way number two is a lie. There’s just no way. <laugh>

Carly Ward (00:19:30):

[00:19:30] The specifics of that, if it is, you’re a great storyteller. I know it is, like, Chris,

Jordan Coolidge (00:19:36):

I don’t know

Carly Ward (00:19:36):

What –

Chris Johnson (00:19:36):

We did get on TV for lunch.

Carly Ward (00:19:39):

<laugh>

Jordan Coolidge (00:19:39):

That is true. I didn’t think about that. I, I’m actually with Carly on that. I, I, I think, uh, I think the first one with the, the flooded renovation, that’s, that’s something I would do. I, I don’t think you guys would do that. So, yeah.

Yvonne Johnson (00:19:54):

What do we get if we won? Do we get something?

Chris Johnson (00:19:56):

I don’t know.

Carly Ward (00:19:58):

Hm. We’ll [00:20:00] send you, we’ll send you the hats. <laugh>

Chris Johnson (00:20:03):

There you go. Nice. <laugh>

Yvonne Johnson (00:20:06):

So, the false one is…

Chris Johnson (00:20:12):

Number three.

Yvonne Johnson (00:20:12):

Number three. Ugh. Dang it. It

Chris Johnson (00:20:16):

Did happen, but we didn’t pay

Yvonne Johnson (00:20:18):

It back.

Carly Ward (00:20:18):

Okay, okay. It happened. I was like, “Man, that is specific.”

Yvonne Johnson (00:20:22):

Didn’t have to pay the $140,000. They

Chris Johnson (00:20:25):

Were able to track it down and actually find who took it and get the money – [00:20:30] Yes. Back. But they

Yvonne Johnson (00:20:31):

Had – From somebody in Japan. Yeah. So.

Carly Ward (00:20:33):

Okay. There you go. Next question. Okay. If you could choose all three to, in a perf… Okay. Which one would you not wanna have happen to you out of all three?

Yvonne Johnson (00:20:46):

All three of them. <laugh> Well, I definitely don’t wanna pay 140 – I dont wanna pay $140,000.00 out of our pocket.

Chris Johnson (00:20:53):

Yeah. Right.

Yvonne Johnson (00:20:54):

So I think… And I feel bad that the guy died. I do feel bad. You know?

Chris Johnson (00:20:58):

Yeah. And

Yvonne Johnson (00:20:58):

Sometimes I feel like we had [00:21:00] to do with that stress. Yeah. Yeah. So, I think I would, I-

Chris Johnson (00:21:06):

I would say number three. ‘Cause actually –

Yvonne Johnson (00:21:08):

The money?…

Chris Johnson (00:21:08):

With the… Yeah, I don’t wanna pay $140,000.

Yvonne Johnson (00:21:11):

Oh, I though they were saying which one would you choose to happen?

Chris Johnson (00:21:14):

Oh, number one.

Carly Ward (00:21:15):

Number one. Number one. Number

Yvonne Johnson (00:21:17):

One. You have to go do the

Chris Johnson (00:21:18):

Countertop. Yeah, because literally when, when it happened –

Yvonne Johnson (00:21:20):

I mean, the plumbing. The – Yeah.

Chris Johnson (00:21:21):

Oh, that sucks. My, my guy was upstairs taking out a vanity. He didn’t shut the water off. Mm-hmm. And he nicked one of the water lines. And [00:21:30] water was coming down out of the recess lights into the main living room area that we had just remodeled. And the client came in from a job and was like, “Hmm, that’s interesting. I know you’ll fix it.” And left.

Yvonne Johnson (00:21:44):

And walked out.

Chris Johnson (00:21:45):

And it was no problems.

Yvonne Johnson (00:21:46):

He had no issues. And it was, it wasn’t dripping. It was –

Chris Johnson (00:21:49):

Cushion. Like I had buckets and buckets on each, each recess light. I would take

Yvonne Johnson (00:21:54):

That one too. ‘Cause it was just some drywall work.

Chris Johnson (00:21:56):

Yep. Drywall work.

Carly Ward (00:21:57):

Drywall, we can fix that. <laugh>

Yvonne Johnson (00:21:59):

For

Carly Ward (00:21:59):

Sure.

Chris Johnson (00:22:00):

[00:22:00] We can fix it. Yeah.

Yvonne Johnson (00:22:02):

And furniture.

Chris Johnson (00:22:02):

And fans and… Yeah. It was a lot. New furniture. The list

Yvonne Johnson (00:22:05):

Goes

Chris Johnson (00:22:06):

On. You know, yeah. It was a strain that kept unraveling. <laugh> But learn a lesson. That process is, is –

Yvonne Johnson (00:22:13):

We’ll never do that. Dialed in.

Chris Johnson (00:22:15):

Yeah. We’re dialed in on the demo piece right now. Yeah, for sure. Well,

Jordan Coolidge (00:22:19):

Chris, I, I actually, you know, ha – to kinda get into it a little bit, uh, stop talking about such negative things. Let’s talk about some positives here. <laugh> Uh, no. I, [00:22:30] I’m very curious, Chris, um, you know, with your now framing and carpentry expertise, uh, and, and learning about how it’s kinda homegrown, uh, literally, uh, in, in your garage. At what point in your endeavors did you feel like you kinda transitioned from, like, startup, catch-up mode and into, “I’m an expert. I’m, I’m pretty darn good at this stuff.”

Chris Johnson (00:22:57):

Yeah. I was talking with Yvonne maybe [00:23:00] two years ago, and I was like, “I feel like the game has finally slowed down.” You know how athletes say, like, when they get into, when they move up to the next level, you move from high school to college, from college to pro, the speed of the game changes and things are just flying past you so fast. I would probably say maybe a good two years, maybe three years ago is when things started to finally slow down of, like, okay, I understand the flow [00:23:30] of how projects go. We did enough. I’ve made enough mistakes out here. This is the flow of the project. This is who I need to have in the project. This is where we can stack subs. This sub needs to be here by itself. It’s like I finally got it and I could come out of the, the craftsmen and, and the tools perspective of being so engulfed into just actually doing the work to really kinda now thinking about, okay, how profitable are we –

Yvonne Johnson (00:23:57):

Uh-huh.

Chris Johnson (00:23:57):

In the business? What is the timing looking like [00:24:00] now? It’s, it’s almost like going from player to coach.

Yvonne Johnson (00:24:03):

Yeah.

Chris Johnson (00:24:04):

And so I would say probably about two years ago is when things finally started to kinda slow down and I could look at things like a, like a offensive coordinator and really see where the gaps were.

Jordan Coolidge (00:24:14):

Yeah. And how, how many years after Yvonne made that first purchase or made that first purchase where you, uh, sold, sold the table and ended up building your own? How many years after that, uh, wa- was it a couple years ago? Uh – About seven

Chris Johnson (00:24:27):

Years. Seven

Jordan Coolidge (00:24:28):

Years? About

Chris Johnson (00:24:29):

Seven, [00:24:30] eight years. Yeah.

Yvonne Johnson (00:24:31):

Yeah. Yeah. ‘Cause I think we started, we started, like – 20s. Doing furniture in 2014, 2015. Mm-hmm. And we started our first kinda, like, remodels in people’s home, like, 2017. 17. Yeah. And Chris didn’t leave his job that nobody knew he had until 2020. Yeah. So literally, Chris was up at five o’clock in the morning every day doing [00:25:00] all of… I’m sorry for whoever’s watching that he was working for, but he was doing his job at 5:00 in the morning till 8:00. And then at 8:00, he would put his job on autopilot and still win all of these awards. Like, he was being sent out to different parts of the country to get all these different huge awards. And he was working from 5:00 to 8:00, and then he was on a ladder the rest of the day working in people’s job sites [00:25:30] and going around to different job sites, but on the phone with his work, with his job.

Yvonne Johnson (00:25:35):

Yeah. And nobody knew he had a job. I read, um – He just left in 2020.

Chris Johnson (00:25:39):

I read Tim Ferris’ the, what is it, five-hour work week, four-hour work week? Yeah. And how to automate, delegate, eliminate. And I really took it to heart. And so I just started putting things in place, because at that point in time, the sales game had slowed down for me also, and I had enough tenure where I knew how to operate the trucks, different merchandising managers and, and whatnot. And so [00:26:00] I would do what I needed to do in the morning, put things on autopilot, and then start building the business over here at Reclaim Carmen.

Carly Ward (00:26:07):

I wanna touch on, um, your mentor that you had brought up earlier. Remind me his name.

Chris Johnson (00:26:14):

Darryl.

Carly Ward (00:26:15):

Daryl.

Chris Johnson (00:26:15):

Darryl.

Yvonne Johnson (00:26:16):

Darrell Sims.

Carly Ward (00:26:17):

Now, remind me of the connection that you guys had prior, because it wasn’t much, uh, before the, uh, uh, reclaimed reno, right?

Yvonne Johnson (00:26:27):

Nothing.

Chris Johnson (00:26:28):

Nothing. Never seen this man in [00:26:30] my… This… When I tell you God has played such a role in our, in faith, in our, our, our, our pathway, literally, this man walked out at just the right time when we happened to be walking past

Yvonne Johnson (00:26:43):

His construction site. They were filming us. They were filming us walking through our downtown historical area. He walked out of a huge commercial project that he was building out a historical restaurant. Mm-hmm. And he was the GC on the job. And he was like, “What you guys doing?” [00:27:00] Yeah, I was hysterical. And he was like, “This looks like fun.” Yeah. <laugh> And Chris was like, “Can I take your card?” And that was it. And it was maybe six… It was close to a year later that you calle him up out of the blue and said, “I don’t know if you remember me.” And, and he said, “We have this opportunity. Would you be open?” Mm. And then we didn’t talk to him again for a couple months when you deal with, um, T- TV. It could be months before you hear from people. And then we called him again.

Yvonne Johnson (00:27:27):

We were like, “Are, are you willing to do this?” He said, “I’ll show [00:27:30] up.” We didn’t know if he was gonna show up. We did. We just were like, “I hope so.”

Chris Johnson (00:27:33):

Yeah. It was strictly on word, and it was just… And we talk to this day. I talk to him all the time.

Yvonne Johnson (00:27:39):

Yeah. Now, I mean, all the time. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Now,

Carly Ward (00:27:41):

You’ve been pretty transparent that going into that, you were like, “We, we don’t know.” <laugh> Like, we’re, like, we’re kinda not cut out for this yet. Do you think that without Darryl involved that you could’ve still moved forward and, and done it as well as you did? Well, we would’ve…

Yvonne Johnson (00:27:58):

I’ll [00:28:00] let him answer, but we would’ve had to move forward. The people were… We would’ve had to. Now, what we would’ve done, I don’t know, but they were coming. <laugh> The people were, they were already filming – They

Carly Ward (00:28:12):

Weren’t

Yvonne Johnson (00:28:12):

Coming. Flip or Flop Atlanta. They were already filming Flip or Flop Atlanta around the corner. Yeah. And they had crews coming from California. Mm-hmm. Oh, no. We, we were filming something. Mm-hmm. What it was, I don’t, I don’t know how Chris was gonna pull it off, but –

Chris Johnson (00:28:27):

I would’ve probably found another

Yvonne Johnson (00:28:30):

[00:28:30] GP – Found somebody.

Chris Johnson (00:28:32):

To, to work with us on it.

Carly Ward (00:28:34):

But how pivotal that –

Chris Johnson (00:28:36):

But I don’t know. That he

Carly Ward (00:28:36):

Came into your lives and has continued to be such a, you know, a huge part of, of your growth and your success and amazing that you guys still have that, that relationship to build on.

Yvonne Johnson (00:28:49):

Yeah. And Carly, he didn’t ask for anything. Like, we offered him. We said, “Can we please pay you something?” And I think we paid him back then for a month of him showing [00:29:00] up every day to a, to a, um, film site and job site where every single time you did one thing on set, like one time we opened up the walls and termites were everywhere. And then they said, “Open up the wall again so we can see the reaction again. Open up the wall a third time so we can see the reaction a third.” He went through this for four weeks or more. Mm-hmm. And we paid him $1,500 – No,

Chris Johnson (00:29:26):

We paid him 3,000.

Yvonne Johnson (00:29:28):

No, we did not. Did we not? No, we did not. We paid [00:29:30] him $1,500. We did pay him $3,000? I don’t think… Well, you, let’s say – That’s how November I

Jordan Coolidge (00:29:36):

Sent him.

Yvonne Johnson (00:29:36):

Can,

Jordan Coolidge (00:29:37):

Can we get Darrell on the phone? Yeah. Okay. Nothing.

Carly Ward (00:29:42):

And

Yvonne Johnson (00:29:42):

He, I, and then he helped Chris – He did. Get his GC license. Everything. He’s been – And

Chris Johnson (00:29:47):

To this day, he says, “You’re the only person, because I’ve offered to help multiple people, you’re the only person that has ever followed through on my offer to go through 100% and get your license. [00:30:00] So a lot of research. So how,

Carly Ward (00:30:01):

How has that impacted the way that you show up for the building community and, and other builders around you that are maybe seeking guidance and, you know, and help?

Chris Johnson (00:30:12):

You know, we’ve, we’ve toyed a lot of times between like starting courses and classes and, you know, and stuff like that. And people have asked for mentorship. Mm-hmm. But a lot of times, like we, we just don’t gatekeep because that’s not how it was given to us. Mm-hmm. You know, we just freely give the information away because [00:30:30] somebody was a blessing to us and, and blessed us with the information. And that’s how it’s continued to be through other mentorships also, people have just poured into us. And so we just try to, with karma, put it right back out, you know, because that’s, we feel like that’s how we’ve gotten it.

Carly Ward (00:30:47):

I think that’s a beautiful thing about the construction industry is like, it’s not very often that you’re hearing like kind of that like gatekeeping mentality, right? Yeah. Of course you do. You’re gonna hear it in every industry, but I would say by and large, [00:31:00] like it’s very much like that exact same type of mentality that you guys are describing. Um, and, and I think that’s where the real magic happens is, you know, even as good as we are, we can always be learning from others and, um, and, and also on the other side of things, helping, you know, the collective community grow and, and learn as well.

Jordan Coolidge (00:31:19):

I, I actually have another question kinda in this vein of like, you know, transitioning to, to running a business. I’ll be honest, in my day-to-day, I work with a lot of construction companies that have, [00:31:30] you know, folks that are in a relationship then jointly, you know, running a business together. I’m curious from, from y’all’s perspective, what’s that been like to, you know, have a personal relationship that looked very different, I can imagine, uh, before this whole reclaimed reno and everything that’s followed since. What, what’s that path been like for, for you both? And, and what are some of the things you’ve, you’ve learned along the way together?

Yvonne Johnson (00:31:57):

It’s been a wild ride. It has. But [00:32:00] I will say this. I’ll say when I met Chris, he was a dreamer and he, although he was working a job, he had huge dreams of doing more than that, of having his own business in some sense of the word. I was already working for myself. So I think we have a unique, um, situation where you have, yes, we did come together as a couple and to work together, but sometimes you [00:32:30] have couples that are trying to come together to work together and neither one of them or one of them doesn’t want to own a business. We both were entrepreneurs at heart. And I was always seeking somebody in my life that had big dreams that didn’t wanna stay stagnant at a certain position at a job, for example, for me. Like I needed somebody that was dreaming with me.

Yvonne Johnson (00:32:56):

And, and I was that way. When he met me, I remember saying to him, [00:33:00] “If you’re looking for somebody that like has a regular nine to five and can tell you how much money she’s making each month and what, that’s not who you have. I have been, been wor – I don’t even know what I did with my college degree. I have not been working like that, you know, for years. But I think when we came together, it was somewhat easier because we both knew we wanted to work as entrepreneurs. We just had to figure out if we could enjoy working together. And I don’t know [00:33:30] why it works for us, but it does. It, you know, we have our hard

Chris Johnson (00:33:35):

Days. Yeah. I think for, for me, I’ve learned a lot of, or I can see in both of us, a lot of compromising – Yeah. And a lot of self-discovery, right? To really see like, okay, why am I being so emotional right now? Like what’s causing me to show up here? You know, let me kind of reflect on, on myself. And when I’m pointing fingers, like, yeah, I can point a finger, but there’s three [00:34:00] that’s pointing back at me of things that I’ve dropped the ball on also. So I know I have my roles, she has her roles, and we just kind of naturally, um, flow together with those things. And sometimes they, they cross over. But I think we’ve had to really continue to be on a path of self-discovery – uh-huh. And learn about our strengths and where we know that we’re weak, that the other person can, can pick up the ball there.

Chris Johnson (00:34:28):

Or if both of us are weak, [00:34:30] we know we need to outsource it and seek it out from somebody else.

Carly Ward (00:34:33):

I can tell that a lot from the both of you that you’re like the… Well, when you had mentioned Chris earlier, like how you’ve been kind of like become a master delegator, right? Um, and you, and you’ve said like, you’re like on the chaos and it’s very clear Yvonne’s the, the call, uh, the calm. Um, and it, it’s just really awesome to see. And I know it’s not very often, especially in this s- stressful industry. Um, it’s a testament to obviously your communication and just [00:35:00] your, your partnership. So it’s

Yvonne Johnson (00:35:02):

Beautiful. I’ll say, um, well, thank you. And I’ll say that for years we used to joke about it all the time. We would be like, “Oh my gosh, we work together.” We would tell people, “Oh, it’s so horrible. Uh, could you imagine working with your spouse? We have to see him all day, every day.” And we would joke. And then one day we talked about it and we said, “Let’s, you know, it’s funny, but let’s stop joking about that.” Like literally, we are so lucky. We’re so blessed. Most [00:35:30] people have a, not most, but a lot of people have a hard time even spending any time together. The fact that we can stay married, build a business, and who else would you ever want to trust with your company than somebody that literally has just as much at stake and wants the same things as you do than your spouse?

Yvonne Johnson (00:35:53):

Like that’s something to be celebrated – Yeah. Instead of just comedy all the time even though – Yeah. And

Chris Johnson (00:35:58):

Words

Yvonne Johnson (00:35:58):

Are

Chris Johnson (00:35:58):

Powerful. So let’s speak into [00:36:00] existence what we want to show up, you know, even if we’re not having the best relationship, but speaking, speak it into existence because words and thoughts become things, so.

Yvonne Johnson (00:36:09):

Yeah.

Carly Ward (00:36:11):

I love that. I do wanna pivot a little bit. We’re gonna do another, uh, spooky segment. Um – Great. <laugh> Thank you. I tr – I was gonna do it. I know. And I was like, hold, hold

Jordan Coolidge (00:36:23):

For a second.

Carly Ward (00:36:26):

So we are going to do the ghosted segment, [00:36:30] um, where we talk about, uh, what you would prefer or what would your move be in, uh, situations where you’re being ghosted. Mm-hmm. Um, so the first one that we have, if a sub doesn’t show up, no calls, no, no texts, what, what’s your first move?

Chris Johnson (00:36:50):

So –

Yvonne Johnson (00:36:51):

It used to be. It

Chris Johnson (00:36:52):

Used to be I would hop in and fill in for where the sub is at.

Yvonne Johnson (00:36:58):

Or we would bring in another [00:37:00] sub quickly because we were so concerned that the client was gonna have an issue with it not moving forward that day. Mm-hmm. And we would move somebody in as, as fast as possible to fill that gap. Mm-hmm. But we learned a

Chris Johnson (00:37:15):

Lot from that. Yeah. We learned a lot from doing both, me filling in or bringing somebody else in. Um, number one, if I’m filling in, then I can’t operate the business as it needs to be –

Yvonne Johnson (00:37:27):

Uh-huh.

Chris Johnson (00:37:27):

Operating for that day. And then [00:37:30] the times that we have substituted a sub for a project just out the blue, we’ve had to go back and redo the work. Yeah. Pull out all the tile and fix it instead of just being patient and waiting on that sub to get his life together to come over to do the actual work. And the way that we kinda, not, not kinda, but the way that we get around that and we don’t have that same anxiety with communicating that to the client when a sub is not gonna be there that day is [00:38:00] in our pre-construction process, we, when we’re talking about the schedule, we’re already telling them this is high level and tentative. This is so that you can see the strategy of how the project is going to flow, but understand this is construction, subs run behind, subs may be early.

Chris Johnson (00:38:15):

It’s not gonna flow 100% like this. Mm-hmm. So there may be some days that you don’t have activity. There may be a couple of days that you don’t have activity. Yeah. But understand your project is still moving. And with us having that communication upfront, we have [00:38:30] less anxiety and, and less trigger actions to just trying to, you know, fix it in the spur of the moment.

Jordan Coolidge (00:38:37):

Setting expectations and then –

Yvonne Johnson (00:38:39):

Yeah.

Jordan Coolidge (00:38:39):

Clear communication throughout the process is, is the recipe for success there, for sure. I love that. So –

Yvonne Johnson (00:38:45):

I found too, like with Buildertrend, for example, um, in our scheduling system, we got, we made a, a shift where we stopped putting every single detail that they were able to see in the schedule [00:39:00] of who was coming that day, you know, and we started doing a high level schedule for them. But then on our side, it was drilled down to who was supposed to be where. And that, again, helped with their anxiety, which helped with my anxiety. Mm-hmm. And then if it was something that was gonna slow down the rest of the process and was gonna make a huge difference in the rest of the project, that’s a time where we’re looking at, is this something Chris can jump in and knock this out or can somebody else [00:39:30] in our team jump in and knock this out so we can move it forward? Right.

Yvonne Johnson (00:39:33):

But it has to be pretty bad for it to – Yeah. It

Chris Johnson (00:39:36):

Has to be throwing something else

Yvonne Johnson (00:39:37):

Off. Yeah.

Chris Johnson (00:39:38):

Like cabinets going in.

Yvonne Johnson (00:39:40):

The next day or

Chris Johnson (00:39:40):

Something. Yeah. Or like stone going in the next day and these cabinets need to be leveled out or something like that. Yeah. Then I’ll hop in. But for the most part, it’s, it, it falls into the line of, of the schedule holistically for the project. And we’ve already had that conversation upfront with the

Jordan Coolidge (00:39:56):

Client. Yeah. Have you, uh, here, here’s the next one. So have you ever [00:40:00] been ghosted by a client? Let’s say you get to do all the fun stuff of pick out, you know, all the, all the fun selections, what kind of countertops you want, what kind of cabinets you want, whatever it might be. And then kind of things go dark for a while. Uh, how do you handle that scenario without, you know, totally just burning, <laugh> burning everything moving forward?

Yvonne Johnson (00:40:23):

Um, I mean, we’re working with a client right now – <laugh>… That 20, it’s 2026 [00:40:30] and we started their project in July of 2025. Oh, wow. And they showed back up in January. Mm-hmm. So it was about six months, not three weeks. It was like six months of them where they disappeared – uh-huh. And showed back up. So here are a few things that I know has made it a little bit easier for us. Because we started to do pre-construction agreements where they were investing in the beginning part of their project, [00:41:00] I have found that less people just disappear when they have had to put in a deposit or, you know, um, into working their project from the beginning. Before we had a pre-construction agreement and, and we weren’t taking anything upfront for the work that we were doing and our time in the beginning – uh-huh. People would get started with us and then, oh, you know, they’re, they’re g – they’ve ghosted us and then we can’t find them for months and then they [00:41:30] show back up and they want us to reengage.

Yvonne Johnson (00:41:32):

But now, because we have this in place and they’re kind of putting their money where their mouth is, they have something that’s keeping them engaged. Mm-hmm. Now, for this client, for example, we did all those things and they did disappear for six months. Mm-hmm. And when they showed back up and they were full of, you know, apologies, which we didn’t… We were like – Right. Okay. Yes, it did take somebody out of our funnel, which we could’ve filled, we could’ve had somebody else in the funnel at [00:42:00] that time. Mm-hmm. But what we did do is we said, “Hey, let’s go ahead and get back started. But if we are not sticking with the entire plan that we had from a year ago, there is now another investment that’s in place that you are going to have to pay for these hours that we’re having to start everything over again.” Mm-hmm.

Yvonne Johnson (00:42:20):

So just setting clear expectations upfront and then setting the expectation of the timeline.

Chris Johnson (00:42:25):

Yeah, because they were like, “Well, we still need it done by…” <laugh> Yeah. <laugh> [00:42:30] That’s not happening. <laugh> It’s

Yvonne Johnson (00:42:33):

Gone.

Chris Johnson (00:42:34):

<laugh> That’s out the window.

Carly Ward (00:42:36):

Yes. <laugh>

Yvonne Johnson (00:42:37):

So…

Carly Ward (00:42:38):

Now, how about on the sales side of things? Let’s say you guys, you know, go out, you give them a proposal, and then it’s like crickets. Are you, are we reaching back out or are we s- s- see you later? <laugh>

Chris Johnson (00:42:54):

So, so in our, our pre-construction process, when… Typically, when, when clients reach [00:43:00] out to us to do work, we’d say, “Hey, go to our website, fill out an inquiry form, put in as much information as possible, make them do a little work, make sure that they’re serious about it.” Mm-hmm. Um, then we’ll book a discovery call, tell you how our process is that we just don’t do free proposals, that we do a pre-construction process first. And then if you feel comfortable with what our, our process is, we’ll come out, take a look on site, get a full itemized list of what the deliverables are gonna be for the project, [00:43:30] what the scope is. Mm-hmm. Then we’ll send you the pre-construction terms there.

Yvonne Johnson (00:43:34):

Got it.

Chris Johnson (00:43:34):

Um, so typically, we don’t get ghosted because we’re moving them along our process. The one time that we did go to an actual onsite after having the discovery call, we were there… Oh, this feels like we’re talking a lot about death, but we <laugh> <laugh> we were there doing the, like, kinda walkthrough and walked through the whole house and was putting the scope down. And then the wife says, “Oh, I gotta [00:44:00] take this call.” Leaves out, comes back, and she’s like, “My mother just died,” and then runs to – It was

Yvonne Johnson (00:44:06):

Bad. It was serious. The back.

Chris Johnson (00:44:08):

And

Yvonne Johnson (00:44:08):

We were left there with

Chris Johnson (00:44:09):

The husband. The husband was like, “Yeah, we kinda knew it was coming.” It was

Yvonne Johnson (00:44:12):

Happening.

Chris Johnson (00:44:12):

So we’ll just

Yvonne Johnson (00:44:14):

Circle back with you guys.

Chris Johnson (00:44:14):

And

Yvonne Johnson (00:44:15):

He escorts them out the door, like in the middle of everything. Everything. He’s like, “Get out. You gotta

Chris Johnson (00:44:20):

Go.” Yeah.

Yvonne Johnson (00:44:20):

Yeah,

Chris Johnson (00:44:21):

Yeah, yeah. So we were like, “Damn, that sucks, man. We feel bad.” We felt like we were kinda part of it. So we sent them a edible arrangement. Yeah <laugh>. Just say like, [00:44:30] “Hey, sorry for your loss. You know, we feel bad, you know, but hey, you know, we’re here whenever you guys get ready, take your time. No pressure.” And then we didn’t hear back from them for

Yvonne Johnson (00:44:40):

Like – They were like, “When do you follow up?” Like

Chris Johnson (00:44:42):

90 days. We’re like, “This is weird.”

Yvonne Johnson (00:44:44):

Like- Like, but are we still

Chris Johnson (00:44:44):

Grieving? Not only did you not follow up with us, but you didn’t even say

Yvonne Johnson (00:44:47):

Like – We didn’t say thank you for the come on.

Carly Ward (00:44:50):

Like,

Chris Johnson (00:44:52):

The caramel dip. <laugh>

Yvonne Johnson (00:44:57):

Then are you still grieving? What’s happening? So then [00:45:00] I, like, tapped them just a little bit. Yeah. And then – Say,

Chris Johnson (00:45:03):

“Hey, we’re just checking on you guys.” You just…

Yvonne Johnson (00:45:06):

And what

Chris Johnson (00:45:06):

Was their – Though about you, and they were like, “Oh, yeah, we got somebody else to do it. Project is done.” I’m gonna need

Carly Ward (00:45:11):

That caramel dip back. Yeah.

Chris Johnson (00:45:13):

Exactly. <laugh>

Yvonne Johnson (00:45:15):

And this was not like a 50 thou… This was like a gut. Like, you – It was a question. In the last three months, you had your whole house gutted and w – and we though you were still grieving. Right. So, yeah. So, but to answer your question, I normally [00:45:30] follow up maybe twice. Like, I’ll do one follow-up just to make sure that they actually received the information that I sent over, my phone call, voicemail, you know, or, you know, whatever. Mm-hmm. And then if I don’t hear anything again, then I’m following up one more time. And at that point, I’m –

Carly Ward (00:45:49):

They’re out to

Yvonne Johnson (00:45:49):

Pasture. I’m moving on. Yep. ‘Cause I ha – because I have to, I have to know that that means that it’s opening up for something bigger and better that’s coming to us. Totally.

Carly Ward (00:46:00):

[00:46:00] Well, pivoting a, a little bit, um, you know, we talked, um, earlier that Daryl, uh, is actually a big part of, like, doing a lot of commercial work. Um, and I know you guys are just starting to scratch the surface, um, of commercial work. And so I’m curious what that transition has looked for you guy – looked like for you guys, and also if Daryl’s playing a part in, um, in that development and that growth for you.

Chris Johnson (00:46:26):

Um, I’ll reach out to Daryl if it’s something that, you know, I quite [00:46:30] haven’t experienced before. Mm-hmm. And he’ll always help me out. Or we may even partner on a job. We’ve actually partnered on a very large commercial renovation that we did. It was 30,000 square feet, and we partnered on it. We operated as the project managers, and then did the FF&E, and he handled the construction and permitting side of the business. So, um, from that standpoint, as opposed to it being kinda mentor-mentee – uh-huh. We’re now business partners – uh-huh. In the game. Um, and so [00:47:00] that transition has been a little different because there’s a lot more moving parts. Mm-hmm. Um, but – A

Carly Ward (00:47:06):

Few

Chris Johnson (00:47:06):

More papers.

Yvonne Johnson (00:47:08):

Yeah.

Chris Johnson (00:47:09):

Yeah. 100%. But after we started using Buildertrend, we have more of the confidence – Yeah. To be able to go into those projects that have all those moving parts. So we pair Buildertrend with our processes – uh-huh. And it just kinda organizes things together.

Yvonne Johnson (00:47:26):

Yeah. You know? There’s a lot of things with commercial projects [00:47:30] that… Yeah, it was a big switch when we moved over to commercial. The projects were much bigger, much more expensive. You’re dealing with such a large amount of square footage that even the smallest job is a lot of money because you’re… For me, I’m furnishing 30,000 square feet, you know? Um, so you could be furnishing a space with a million dollars, right? Mm-hmm. So we were dealing with higher in – like, higher price projects. Mm-hmm. [00:48:00] And then you’re also dealing with, um, a lot of different decision makers, so… Or people that think that they’re the decision makers. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it gets very hard with emails. So the fact that the – A lot of cooks in the

Carly Ward (00:48:11):

Kitchen.

Yvonne Johnson (00:48:11):

<laugh>

Yvonne Johnson (00:48:12):

Man, man, oh, man. And then they have their own hierarchy – Hierarchies. Mm-hmm. And politics going on. Mm-hmm. And trying to keep that all under wraps, I would say the, you know, email system that we had in place where we’re able to track everything that every different person [00:48:30] had to say – Right. Is one thing. Having people sign off on selections – uh-huh. Major – uh-huh. Because you get items into a project, and then someone that you didn’t even know was a decision maker, they show up at the project and $80,000 worth of chairs, just, just, just the chairs in one room, they’re looking at these chairs and they’re like, uh, who decided [00:49:00] on these chairs? And, and who’s left responsible to take $80,000 worth of chairs back? You have to have those selections signed off. Yeah. So there’s a lot of things that we learned moving over to commercial.

Yvonne Johnson (00:49:11):

And change orders.

Chris Johnson (00:49:12):

Oh my

Yvonne Johnson (00:49:12):

Gosh. Oh, the change orders. Being able

Chris Johnson (00:49:13):

To track the change orders – uh-huh. Is a game changer

Yvonne Johnson (00:49:17):

For us

Chris Johnson (00:49:17):

Also. Yeah.

Yvonne Johnson (00:49:18):

Yeah. So that’s… Yeah, I don’t know how we would really do it without having a system – Right. In place. Mm-hmm.

Jordan Coolidge (00:49:25):

So. So continuing to compare, you know, residential, commercial, [00:49:30] as you’ve started to dip your toe in that world, I think defining what, what makes a, a, a, a project successful in the residential world is, uh, is, is the person or the family happy that, you know, we’ve been working with this entire time. How do you, how do you gauge whether it was a success on the commercial side of things? Like how, how do you, how do you gauge that and what are you, what are you evaluating throughout?

Chris Johnson (00:49:55):

I mean, for, for… Oh my gosh. <laugh> Sorry. For, [00:50:00] for commercial, um, you know, it, it is still somewhat of a, of a emotional process for certain owners, right? Mm-hmm. Depending upon what the business is. It could be their baby. Yes. And so the biggest thing is staying on schedule and the budget.

Yvonne Johnson (00:50:19):

Mm-hmm.

Chris Johnson (00:50:20):

You know? Um, and the communication aspect of it. So did we decrease the level of anxiety that our client has in the whole process, especially if [00:50:30] they’ve never did a build out or anything like that before? Um, were we able to stay within the budget – uh-huh. That they were looking for? Or did we communicate it and were able to track it as to why things were – Right. Over, you know? Um, and just having the, the, the, the schedule, did we complete it on time and we didn’t hold up their, their grand opening? Mm-hmm. You know?

Yvonne Johnson (00:50:53):

That’s always been a major thing. Yeah. A lot of the ones we’re doing, it were not… We hadn’t done as many where [00:51:00] people were just working in the space. We have. We have done that too, where they’re working in the space and we’re having to go in weekends, evenings, things like that. And you are on a schedule because you have to get this done there in the space. But we have had a handful where it’s been, “If you don’t get it done on this date, we have all these people coming from a grand opening.” And that’s, that’s, that’s a lot of pressure. Yeah. You know, and it’s pressure on her. Stakes are high. <laugh> Yeah. Yeah. Major.

Chris Johnson (00:51:28):

We try to operate off of [00:51:30] three pillars, right? Is that both residential and commercial is that people wanna know what you’re doing, they wanna know when you’re doing it, and they wanna know how much it’s gonna cost. Yeah. And we always try to make sure we’re always in front communication, touching them before they touch us on those three pillars.

Carly Ward (00:51:47):

Yeah. So looking back at where you both were looking down the barrel of a couple cameras back in the day and, and feeling that sense of like, [00:52:00] “Oh, crap. Are we go… Can we do this?” And looking at where you guys are at now and starting to tap into the commercial world, what do you think has been the biggest gap that you guys have closed between that time?

Yvonne Johnson (00:52:17):

Oh, I, I mean, I think for us, it was maybe three, four years ago. We sat down with each other and we were like, “Our jobs are getting bigger. Um, the budgets are getting [00:52:30] bigger. Um, the stress is higher. We are taking people’s hard-earned money and not…” I mean, they’re… Even if it’s just a little bit, it’s their hard earned money. But now we’re taking, I mean, hundreds of thousands of dollars from homeowners and plus, right? And we just sat down one day and we were talking about what we needed to do. And our main thing was we needed some type of system in place, honestly. Like, we went to the [00:53:00] International Builder Show three, four years ago. Mm-hmm. And our prime thing that we were looking for was a management system to help us get our systems together because we felt like that’s what we were missing.

Yvonne Johnson (00:53:15):

Yeah. So if there is one thing that I think has changed almost everything for us in the last probably four to six years – uh-huh. It’s been that we actually have a system now in place that people, that we can drop our customers [00:53:30] into, which makes it where it’s less stressful on us, less stressful on them. And it also helps us to win the jobs that 40, 50-year-old companies were going up against. So we don’t have that same tenure of time. We weren’t given a company handed down to us from our parents and, you know, so we needed something to compete with that. And the biggest compliment when we get done with jobs is [00:54:00] that they felt like it was seamless – uh-huh. That the process was great. It turned out amazing, but that the process was great, and that all came down to our systems. That’s what I think has been the biggest –

Chris Johnson (00:54:12):

Close.

Yvonne Johnson (00:54:13):

Yeah, change for us.

Chris Johnson (00:54:15):

Yeah. I think for us is – The age

Yvonne Johnson (00:54:16):

Gap.

Chris Johnson (00:54:16):

Understanding the numbers better.

Yvonne Johnson (00:54:19):

Mm-hmm.

Chris Johnson (00:54:19):

You know, we still have some room to go, but job costing – uh-huh. Is been a game changer for us just that we understand how profitable [00:54:30] we are and really understanding what our, our numbers are. When I was with Pepsi, we had all these different systems and KPIs that we had to track, and I was like, “Ah, I hate this. I’m being micromanaged. I don’t want any of this.” <laugh> When I start my business, none of these systems just, just running rogue. <laugh> And then we get into the big projects and I was like, “I don’t know <laugh>

Carly Ward (00:54:51):

What does KPI stand for again? <laugh> I asked

Yvonne Johnson (00:54:53):

That a million times. I was like,” Hey, what are you talking about?

Chris Johnson (00:54:59):

“Peak performance indicator. [00:55:00] <laugh> Yeah. I need to see what’s happening in the business. And so now I’m, I’m able to really drill down and have an understanding of, like, we’re losing money there. Yeah. But no, we should be charging more for this because we keep losing money there. So now on the next bid, this is how much we’re charging for our general conditions. Um, and then I think also the biggest gaps, one of the biggest gaps that we have closed is our network

Chris Johnson (00:55:29):

People. [00:55:30] Buildertrend has been a real big part of that, of, uh, because we don’t know this industry. So we like, “Where are we supposed to go?” I know. We supposed to join this club? We supposed to join this club? But being part of the Buildertrend family and the community, like, we’ve met so many good people that we can have those conversations and be vulnerable and like, “Hey, we suck at this. What are you guys doing?” <laugh> And exchange trade information, you know, without any judgment. Yeah. And most times people are like, “Yeah, we all suck, but hey, this is, this [00:56:00] is how we’re doing it, you know, and it works for us.” And so…

Jordan Coolidge (00:56:03):

Yeah.

Chris Johnson (00:56:03):

Yeah.

Jordan Coolidge (00:56:04):

It’s the truth. Yeah. So if, if there’s, you know, someone out there watching who feels like, you know, they’re agreeing to something bigger than what their skillset can handle or their systems can handle today, um, you know, what’s, what’s one piece of advice or what would you, what would you tell that person that they need to have in place to ensure that they’re not overselling [00:56:30] themselves, but stretching themselves? There’s, there’s a difference between those two. How, how, how would you, how would you manage that and how, how would you give someone advice like that? Find the Darrell.

Chris Johnson (00:56:42):

Find Darrell. <laugh> No, I mean, the network. We’ll be showing his contact information after. <laugh> Put his number on the screen. <laugh> Um, I think because I am, I am very bullish and aggressive – Yeah. With what I know I feel like [00:57:00] I can do. I feel like I can do anything, right? <laugh> But, but then I started realizing, like, there was a, a big courthouse, um, remodel, uh, RFP that went out down here in Atlanta. And I went to, like, the, the pre-submittal meeting that you have to go to in order to be able to submit and walked around. And I was like, “This is a lot.” <laugh>

Yvonne Johnson (00:57:25):

It’s not like that. When he left, he was pumped. Like, I’m about to go here and I’m [00:57:30] gonna get this job. I was like, “The whole courthouse?” And I was like, okay, because now I’m like, “Okay, we’re about to be doing the whole courthouse in downtown Atlanta or whatever. Great.” You know? I was like, “Go get it, Chris.” Yeah. “Go get the whole courthouse.”

Chris Johnson (00:57:44):

So I get there and, like, all the big boy trucks are pulling up and I’m like –

Carly Ward (00:57:48):

Sports cars. <laugh>

Chris Johnson (00:57:49):

O. Oh, and they have

Yvonne Johnson (00:57:50):

Their team.

Chris Johnson (00:57:51):

And they got their whole teams there and everybody with clipboards. So I was like, “Hmm.” I was like, “Okay, this might be a little bit more than what I thought it was.” <laugh> So I was like, “I can still [00:58:00] do it.” Yeah. And then they started going through everything that was needed in order to submit the proposal. And I was like, I had already started talking to architects, engineers. I had already started mentally kind of putting the team together and telling people, “Hey, I’m, I’m be going after this business. Are you open to working with me?”

Yvonne Johnson (00:58:17):

‘Cause then Chris had, I mean, honestly, he, we were – I’m

Chris Johnson (00:58:21):

Gonna get the business.

Yvonne Johnson (00:58:22):

Renovating the – Courthouse. What Fulton County court –

Chris Johnson (00:58:25):

Yep. South

Yvonne Johnson (00:58:26):

Fulton

Chris Johnson (00:58:26):

Courthouse.

Yvonne Johnson (00:58:27):

Yes.

Chris Johnson (00:58:27):

So as they started saying everything that [00:58:30] needed to be done, it wasn’t that I didn’t think that I could do it. Right. I started evaluating the way and how, how big is this learning curve gonna be for me? And how much time is it gonna take for me to bring myself up to speed? And is it really worth me taking the magnifying glass off of the business that we have now and spending the time to go over here and learn it? Do I think I can learn it? Absolutely. Do I think I could execute on it and do it flawlessly? 100%. [00:59:00] But how long is it gonna take me to get there? So I would say do an evaluation of your time. And if you feel like that you can make that learning curve in enough time without it, um, making you compromise on your existing business, your bread and butter with actually generating revenue, and you can step and put on another hat, then go after it.

Chris Johnson (00:59:22):

Go do it. And stretch yourself and learn that skillset. But if it’s gonna take you dropping everything that you have that’s already generating [00:59:30] revenue, a lot of times we go chase that shiny new thing and the main business falls off because we’re, we’re taking ourself too far out of it as opposed to just doing it a little slower. I’m like, “Maybe I should just get like a little shed that they want and learn that process.” <laugh> understand it then. The whole

Yvonne Johnson (00:59:49):

Courthouse.

Chris Johnson (00:59:50):

Yeah, before the whole courthouse, you know. Oh. Yeah. That’s

Yvonne Johnson (00:59:53):

Awesome.

Carly Ward (00:59:54):

Well, for this being a scary, spooky episode, I have to say, this has been one of the… [01:00:00] Warmer conversations that, that we’ve had on here. Um, you guys are so much fun and obviously like, like I’ve said time and time again throughout this episode, you guys have an amazing partnership and your, just the story of your business and where you guys started and where you’re at now is just, you should write a book, honestly. <laugh> I agree.

Yvonne Johnson (01:00:24):

Don’t help with that. I take that.

Carly Ward (01:00:27):

<laugh> After the courthouse. Yeah.

Chris Johnson (01:00:30):

[01:00:30] Mm-hmm.

Jordan Coolidge (01:00:31):

Right. I, I think, uh, you know, this is probably the fastest that, that, uh, a podcast has, has gone for me. I’ve, I’ve really, really enjoyed this conversation. Honestly, getting to know each of you both as individuals, but also through the lens of like you are doing this all together and you’ve obviously spoken on it, uh, a few times. But, uh, I admire the heck out of, you know, who you are, what, what I’ve learned, you [01:01:00] know, in, in this conversation. And

Yvonne Johnson (01:01:01):

I,

Jordan Coolidge (01:01:02):

I truly, truly hope that, uh, I don’t know, we get an opportunity to learn more about, about your adventures, your business and, and really about each of you individually. Uh, I, I really admire both of you. I

Chris Johnson (01:01:14):

Love that. Thank you. We appreciate y’all. We’re honored to be partners with Buildertrend. Yes. We’re honored to be, you know, considered to get on the podcast with you guys. You guys made it easy for us, you know? Really? Yeah,

Yvonne Johnson (01:01:27):

You

Chris Johnson (01:01:27):

Guys are – And the

Yvonne Johnson (01:01:28):

Fact that we can even say something [01:01:30] today that might, I don’t know, make a difference in somebody else’s business that we’re able to voice that, um, we really appreciate it. Mm-hmm. I would say that I wish somebody would have came to us, like when we first got started in this industry and trying to figure it out. I wish we would have had this system then. And when we did start to implement Buildertrend, um, we were talking to each other and [01:02:00] we were like, “Is this too early to implement Buildertrend? We’re all over the place. We’re trying to figure our lives out here with the company. Do we need to have a bigger company to utilize Buildertrend? It’s a robust system. It’s like serious.” And I just, I think if there’s any smaller companies out there watching this – uh-huh. This is the time really to add something that, to their company where you don’t have [01:02:30] to try to turn the wheel, you know, like reverse the wheel down the line and get everybody involved into a system.

Yvonne Johnson (01:02:37):

I’m so happy we, when, that we did it when we did, and I almost wish we would’ve done it – Yeah. You know, two, three

Chris Johnson (01:02:43):

Years before. Set the foundation. If you have aspirations of being a more successful – Yeah. A bigger company, set the foundation now when you don’t have all the chaos of multiple jobs going on and you can really dig into the system, perfect the system [01:03:00] and learn it and set yourself up for success down the road. Yeah.

Carly Ward (01:03:03):

Yeah. I can’t think of a better way to end it other than one last question. Love it. Yeah. Will you guys, will you guys be at IBS this year?

Yvonne Johnson (01:03:12):

Absolutely.

Chris Johnson (01:03:12):

Absolutely.

Carly Ward (01:03:14):

Okay, good. Jordan and I will both be there. Yeah.

Chris Johnson (01:03:16):

Oh nice. Yeah.

Carly Ward (01:03:17):

So,

Chris Johnson (01:03:17):

So

Carly Ward (01:03:18):

We’ll break bread. We’ll have some fun. Yup. Um, and I definitely encourage anyone else, uh, that’s listening to definitely connect with these two all stars while you’re, if you’re gonna be out there. Um, they [01:03:30] obviously have a breadth of knowledge and to share with the industry and, um, they’re a lot of fun too. So, um, can’t wait to see you guys in person out at IBS and thank you so much for being on today and sharing your story with us. Absolutely.

Yvonne Johnson (01:03:44):

Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us. Perfect. We’ll see you in

Carly Ward (01:03:47):

A couple months.

Chris Johnson (01:03:48):

Yep.

Carly Ward (01:03:49):

Yep. And scene. Scene.

Chris Johnson (01:03:51):

There we go.

Carly Ward (01:03:53):

Y wanna hit the red button? That was awesome, you guys. That was

Yvonne Johnson (01:03:56):

Amazing. Oh,

Chris Johnson (01:03:56):

Thank you.

Yvonne Johnson (01:03:57):

Thank

Carly Ward (01:03:58):

You.

Chris Johnson (01:03:59):

Y’all made it easy. Yeah. [01:04:00] Like

Carly Ward (01:04:00):

Genuinely, like Jordan and I have both been having a little bit like I’m purchasing a house, I’m, uh, officiating a wedding on Saturday and I’m like, oh my gosh. I was like, there is, there’s just too much going on up in this brain and this was seriously like one of the easiest podcast conversations that we could have had. Oh good. So thank you so much. Thank you. And I can’t wait to meet you guys in person. It does. Likewise.

Yvonne Johnson (01:04:22):

I’m excited too. We’re gonna have a good time at IBS. We love IBS because we’re able to come together with everybody, you know, from throughout the year. [01:04:30] It’s like the best networking, you know, ever. And we appreciate this podcast and how it was like geared towards things that we could definitely relate to and that we could, you know, speak like honestly about. You know what I mean? ‘Cause every company that you work with is at a different point in their company. Yeah. And they’re a different size and all those things. Um, so I always get me, Chris doesn’t. I always get nervous because I’m like, what is the podcast gonna be about? [01:05:00] Am I gonna know the answers to every part of Buildertrend’s system or, um, you know – No, you

Carly Ward (01:05:06):

Guys did a great job at weaving it in probably better. Like Jordan and I weren’t even asking the questions.

Jordan Coolidge (01:05:12):

No, we didn’t even really. <laugh> We were able to go off script a little bit. I asked you a few things that weren’t in there, so.

Chris Johnson (01:05:17):

Yeah.

Yvonne Johnson (01:05:18):

We appreciate that.

Chris Johnson (01:05:19):

Yeah, we appreciate y’all

Carly Ward (01:05:20):

Too. Um, and just a, a little heads up. Um, we haven’t announced it yet, but there will be a customer party, um, for IBS. So, um, we’ll be sure to make sure that [01:05:30] you guys get that invite and, um, it’ll be at the minus five. Yeah. Uh, but it, it’s like that ice bar, um, on the strip. So it’ll be real, real cool. Um,

Chris Johnson (01:05:42):

Thanks. Minus

Yvonne Johnson (01:05:43):

Five. Minus

Carly Ward (01:05:44):

Five. Yeah. Like it, the whole place is like full of ice. Like it, like everything’s on ice and then they give you like jackets and stuff to wear and they’ve got like fun like little activities and – I can’t wait. Fun drinks, I’m sure. Nice. Yeah. So –

Yvonne Johnson (01:06:00):

[01:06:00] Look forward to it.

Carly Ward (01:06:01):

Cool. Fantastic. Well, you guys have a great rest of your day and, uh –