Episode 9 - Anthony Janckila of Alpine Hardwood
Episode #9 | Anthony Janckila | Alpine Hardwood and How Wood Floor is Art
Anthony describes the journey of starting a wood flooring company that fit his family's needs due to his brother's injury. Anthony explains how their company's goal is to empower its people and grow through the company. Alpine uses personality/skill assessments to organize its company more effectively and put people in a position to succeed. We also cover the importance of managing moisture before, during, and after installation to keep the "wood art" looking and performing well for decades.
Listen to the full episode:
About Anthony Janckila
Anthony is the president, visionary, and co-owner of Alpine Hardwood.
He started farming with his dad when he was five years old and went on
to graduate from St. Cloud State University with an Entrepreneurship degree. Anthony is the oldest boy in his family and has ten siblings, several of which work for Alpine. You may see them on the job or hear one of their voices on the phone. His innovative mind and passionate nature are the driving force behind Alpine’s culture. He oversees everything that
happens at Alpine and is devoted to servicing our clients with the
highest standards.
Alpine Hardwood is a well-established name in the hardwood flooring industry. We are the number one hardwood floor installer in Minneapolis, MN, and have a track record of successful projects as proof.
We have well-trained technicians who have years of experience and will be ready to handle all your hardwood installation projects. It does not matter the type of hardwood you need installed, whether it is luxury vinyl plank flooring or french bleed flooring, you can trust us to deliver commendable results.
Every project and property comes with varying requirements from experience to equipment and we make sure to march all your preference. For more information on how you can get reliable hardwood floor installers in Minneapolis, MN get in touch with us today at (320) 559-0094.
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00:00
Welcome to the curious builder Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host, I am with Anthony Janckila. Today owner and operator of Alpine Hardwood Flooring. Welcome, Anthony.
00:08
Anything smart? Glad to be here?
00:09
Yeah. Well, I'm glad you came on. You're one of my favorite trade partners to work with. And you and your brother Adam, are the owners of the company. Is that right?
00:17
That's correct. And,
00:19
I mean, obviously, I know what you do. But for those listening, I mean, to me, you guys are like, you know, the Ferraris of wood floor installing. And I say that somewhat jokingly, because you guys are amazing. I mean, you guys are incredibly fast, incredibly skilled. And I don't think people really appreciate how much a wood floor does to a home both from from design but also livability. And so I guess I'd like to talk a little bit about how you started your company, and what led you into wood floor. And then we'll kind of go down the the gambit of quality and kind of where you're at now in the industry.
00:53
Sure. Yeah, it, it's a unique, it's a unique field. There's a lot lot that's unknown. Behind the scenes, at the end of the day, you're trying to provide a product. To those that really don't know the process, all they see is the final, the final product, and creates a lot of challenges. A lot of designers and architects and even builders, they design their homes, and a lot of their space is just around the floor. I mean, ultimately you walk on it, you treat it like a piece of artwork, but yet you do. There's a lot of a lot of area that it covers. And unfortunately for us, you really liked hardwood floors, and that helps us helps us and everybody else out a lot. Part of the enjoyment is though is yeah, we do we move in. A lot of our guys like to work. And then the turnaround is so quick. Like there's so much there to do you see a bear space. And then And then, you know, hours later and days later, you also have a final product that everybody seems to enjoy.
01:50
I think it's very visually satisfying. I think, you know, a lot of times, you know, we're building a home, let's say it takes a year, 14 months. And early on in the process. When you're framing a client will come by and be like, oh, man, you guys put on the second floor today, you put on the roof today, like they think man at this rate, you're going to be done in about three weeks. So there's a lot of visual, I've often talked to my framers and ask them like, why do they like framing homes and one of the first things that they comment on is they like to see, at the end of a week, they like to see the end of the day, I can see progress. So many jobs that exist in the world today, it's hard to see progress. And I think a home not only is it so personal someone lives in, it's providing a you know, essential need, it's a home that people live in, but a wood floor specifically to your point, you know, you guys just did an install for us on you know, 3000 square feet. And you know, you know, it's all it's all plywood, and we'll walk maybe walk through in a minute of light just walking through, like the grades of wood that you know, humidity, all the stuff that you know, you know, in your sleep, but just that the average listener went No. But going back to the visual effect that it has is like, you know, within a few hours, it's like you're racking that floor out, you've got everything kind of laid out. And within a day or two, it's like that entire floor is now covered with you know, beautiful white oak, let's say in this example. Yeah,
03:01
I was gonna say that it's intensely gratifying. We have a lot of clients that come in, and they're just shocked, more or less like, even in an evening. And it's like you did this in a day. And it's not like it's it's not like it's a process where you know what, like, I've explained our guides, like it starts off, you can go really, really fast. And you just got to get better and better and better. Through the staining and the finishings and all the sanding process, we can go over that later. But a lot of it, a lot of it still people are just immensely overjoyed, you know, especially when you find when you when they find something that they liked and some inspiration, some color and you can you can actually come up and actually hit that hit that spot for them.
03:43
I think you mentioned it before use the word art. I've never really thought of that before. But I just love wood in general, you know, growing up the son of a builder and just in general liking art. I think Wood is a beautiful, beautiful thing that we get to work with is organic, it's renewable, but each piece is unique. And looking at your floors. You know what looking at how they change, sometimes a client will want it all to look the same. And I don't say anything, because that's their goal. And I don't think you can really do that. 100% I like the variable nature of a wood floor. To me that is the charm. It's the character. I mean, no person is perfect. And I think partly what makes people attractive is the fact that they're unique. And when I say attractive, like why why do you have friends? Like why do you have people that you gravitate toward is there unique little ticks that make them different? I think wood floors is it has character. I mean, we have character trait and yeah, I mean, maybe that's where it came from. It's like hey, this was a character you know, let's throw it
04:41
well and part of if you think of the building process, there's a lot of like, walls or paint or enamels are a lot of spaces where there's it is just a color right I saw one set. So there is only so many places where you can make that unique change, as you mentioned, or something that just breaks out Whether it's a hardwood floor and a piece of artwork, or a space or accent wall, there's only so many spaces and places that you can do it where it makes sense. And fortunately, how to flooring was one of them.
05:10
Yeah. Walk me through how did you start your wood floor company? Like why wood floor? What's the origin story behind you and your brother? So let's see. So how long ago was that for
05:24
one? Okay, so it was I went to college back in oh three, mainly because I needed to learn how to focus and I wanted to start my own company, really the only two angles on my brother Adam, he was working for the floor company at that time, worked for another company when the first one I under and then I worked with him also at same time. So I got out of college at the finance degree. You know, after all said and done, or I mean, he gets the finance job offer and I started out with it. Um, I realize it was just a little too corporate for me. The suit and tie business was not for me. My brother Adam had gotten an accident, head on collision, a teacher had a stroke. And unfortunately, one of the type of projects or the type of work he could do was flooring. So you can walk on the floor, right? It's a flat surface for the most part. He's always liked the trades. He's really good at flooring already. And nonfinancial I just thought that it might be a good fit for us to do start your own company. And together we can both run with
06:23
it. Wow, I did not know that. So your brother got hit head on by another car.
06:27
Yeah, so he got hit head on by a teacher. And actually, she died. Oh, my so but he went in a coma. And then yeah, just passed out or whatever. And then so that that happened and then so he shattered his heel. And um, so like, the two things he loves will flooring for one and then he loves to play hockey. So fortunately, both of them support his accident and his his shattered heel. Interesting. Yeah, you know, like hockey, skate whole food and place netting and, and flooring. There's there's ways and different things that you can see on the floor and you're locking. You're not walking up and steeper lofts or any pitches or anything, right.
07:05
Yeah, yeah. Oh, interesting. The only the person who had a shattered heel was a roofer that fell off a roof and shattered his knee. Okay. Yeah. Falls and hitting cars. You shattered here. No, boy. No, no, no. So you guys started your company? What year was that, that you guys started it? That wasn't all seven. And it was just the two of you, like start walking me through? Because how many? How many employees? Do you have? No.
07:24
So there's about 30 of us.
07:26
They're a big company. Yeah,
07:28
they're all gonna be bigger. It's big for flooring, I guess or I mean, in that respect is for surely there's a lot of Father Son combinations out there. And a lot of old father's and some combinations. So, unfortunately, flooring is pretty aggressive on a body. We tell our guys that by the time they they're age 30 that we want them managing somebody or something. Because it's just not likely. And when we see people with broken bodies all over it, it's just the result of them doing something for so long, you know. So we focus on that. So we start out, there's actually three of us. Couple, another good childhood friend of ours, he was interesting going to school, going back to college, maybe four or five years into it. And then either that are going to start on his own or he was him at heart. And we offered just to buy him out. We bought them out. So make the decision easier for him. And then him and I ran with it from there. Yep, we had a goal of running just one employee per year. At that time, we had maybe eight or nine employees, I believe. They all wanted to come with us. felt like that was the best fit for them. So we ran with that. Yeah, so I guess it's been, I suppose, maybe 10 years, maybe eight to 10 years that we started running? And then yeah, I guess it just kind of keep blossoming from there, I suppose. Where
08:53
did early on because you guys are coqueta. Mostly most of the families. And one thing we'll touch on on later is just like the family structure is pretty unique. But how? Where did your work come from originally? Because right now, I think we've talked roughly between direct, let's say builders or people that are expecting you have to do their work versus like retail a homeowner saying hey, we'd like Alpine hardware to come out and do our floor. Where do you at today? In today's world? 5050 Yeah,
09:20
so right now it's almost exactly and it's been like this for two and a half years. It's almost exactly 50% homeowners. Yep. And then the other would be architects, designers, builders.
09:31
Is that a good? Is that a good ratio for you? Or would you like to see one more than another? I know some of its market driven, right. It's, you know, you can sell it you can control it?
09:39
Yeah, yeah. Um, you know, the builders are always they're always more in or they're always more involved, and they're always more knowledgeable. So there's less time explaining your processes, right? Yep. Because I would imagine most of them are repeat clients as well. Yeah, they're all repeat. They are familiar with the process. They're a part of a construction You know, whole deal altogether? Yes, we homeowners are great. It just requires more effort more time on the front end.
10:08
And most of those I would imagine of the 50% that you do for clients directly how many of those are just sand and ricotta? versus, let's say new floors?
10:18
Yeah. So we still it's still like it's definitely market driven. Yeah, I mean, right now there's a lot of installations going on. Most homeowners it's usually an installation of of a room. Okay, right of a living space, let's say but Reese and the rest I see so that we see a lot of that.
10:35
So you have carpet in a great room and you already had kitchen was wood floor and your sunroom and dining already wood floors. Were like, hey, we want to put in white oak in the great room. So we're gonna take out the carpet, you'll lace in the, for those listening, leasing. And well, you can just grab Lisa, you just kind of interlace your finger into the existing floor. And then you'll sand and record everything. So it looks like it's always been there. Yep. Correct. Yep. Yep. So
10:55
that's, that's almost 100% of the of the homeowner, I guess, base. And then the builders. Yeah, it just depends on the market. A lot of referrals would come in there kind of the same situation or a lot of installations too. Yeah. And of course, there's always the challenges of what's in what's not what's budget, what's not, you know, there's just all those things that like a flooring, like hardwood flooring can be inexpensive, if you compare it to stones and stuff like that, but not so inexpensive to maybe some carpets and no. So there's a lot of challenges that arise with that. I like
11:23
wood floor for a variety of reasons. But I mean, I think well, it's beautiful. We are in touch base about you know, and I'm biased because I just love wood. But I also think especially for the homes that we do, you know, we do maybe for three to four high end homes a year and a handful of remodels. I think at the price point we're on it's pretty much expected the entire main level is wood floor. A lot of times people I often one of my questions that I'll ask clients when I'm building their home or designing it for him is you know, do you wear how shoes? You know, you know, do you wear slippers? And the reason I ask is sometimes people have that connotation that hey, I'm on a hard surface like wood floor, my feet will get tired. Well a lot of people if they're wearing you know how shoes or slippers, you know, that kind of has a mitigating factor. Allergies is a big one, you know having wood I mean, if you've ever seen a micron microscope of like a carpet, you'll never do carpet again. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's pretty nasty. What carpet holds in. It's not great. And you have to clean wood floors too. But as a service that's much easier to clean. How often do you get into conversations like that with your clients just explaining to them the benefits of a wood floor over other surfaces?
12:23
Yeah, so interesting. You say that because it feels like the last five years a lot of hard surfaces are taken over the soft I think allergies drive that number one people with allergies and then they realize that carpets aren't that green? Yeah, I'm really they're made oils and and then they hold on so much extra. Now, most of the issues with any flooring naturally is I mean for any flooring as kids and pets. Right shoes for one could be what's harder on wood flooring, kids? Depends which one, okay, you've got, you've got
13:01
a golden, a golden lab or like a five year old
13:05
if you let the golden lab outside to do its thing, then the five year old can be harder on it. Okay, but a lot of clients for some reason a lot of people they feel like their pets do not you know, pee or anything throughout the halls. And until you're up that carpet and we will we can walk and use the snot right away. Right so some that's interesting to us. And they're just time for like, even as far as just the particles and how NASA Karpeles you don't really know for sure until you roll it up. Look at the bottom say yep. Then, you know, it tells a story everywhere. Yeah, we know where plants have been sitting when our pets have been going in the corner. We know what kids have been doing what they've been losing. Yep. And usually it's hard for us to explain that until we do we roll the carpet in. So there has been a lot of instances where and then you think well the the unseen the allergies that are existing here. So I think that's probably been driving maybe driving the trend toward hurt surface,
13:56
I think I think for sure the younger client clientele is more keen on the air quality. And I think I think I often will bring it up as well just because I like the wood floor. And I also want I'm trying to educate the client, I mean, a big part of my job is you know, trying to not necessarily push a product because that's not really what it's about. It's more of just like educating them and letting them make a decision on what's important to them. So if we talk about let's say filtering their air and odor from the unfiltered water you know, and you know the more information I have and use even like water switching to water based product right for a long time. Most of the other finishings that seemed like we did on wood floors was oil. Can you explain a little bit to those listening that went no is much explained the differences in oil based finishing and water base finishing on a wood floor and the pros and cons to each
14:43
yeah, that's, that's good. It feels like yeah, a lot of a lot of like to tell clients to as well as Um, as far as cleaning purposes, it's much easier to clean a floor it's something's visible, it's always set on top. You can see it, you know, there hence you go clean it You know, carpet doesn't feel like you clean it as much, right. So that being said, it feels like the trend is definitely towards a water based finish, or ain't and as the last VOCs in the previous, you know, decade of finish, waxes used to be fairly prevalent, and then it switched over to a lot of alcohol based finishes.
15:21
So walk me through that wax, I guess we haven't done a lot of wax.
15:24
So you'll see in a lot of like, a lot of for surely commercial spaces and old maybe like 100 year old houses, you know, they'll have an oil finish or some sort of finish, but then they'll have a wax on top, so it's easy to maintain. And you're always you can just run a little machine or a little like a rake over to clean it up. Interesting, it picks up a lot of particles, but it just, it doesn't allow that finish to be to be wrapped as fast. And then wax and water they don't mix. It'll sit on top rather than penetrating the floor. Interest, there are certain things that there's benefits to it. But when you go to do a repair on it, you have to resend most likely and all. Also real quick one quick note. For those that are interested in not they have wax, we will charge an extra like two bucks a square foot of the floor as wax. You can you can spit on a penny and then put it on the floor and then pull it off and a cup like 1015 seconds. And if it leaves a white residue, that means you have wax really that's kind of interesting. Why? Why spit is that? Like just the acid reacting with the copper. Interesting or something and those particles? Yeah, so it's interesting way so we'll do it we can tell almost like right away just by the Sheen's and stuff. Yep. But it just tells you how old your floors for one. Yep. Wax for the most part was non existent. I mean, we still use it here and there just for clients that are prevalent to it. But it feels like it disappeared, mainly, maybe 60s 70s For the most part, and then oil started picking up. And then now in the last maybe 10 years, it feels like we're buying very few, you know, gallons oil and then switching over to water bases
16:55
in the water. If I understand it, is there a difference in hardness between oil and water? Or is the hardness the same as far as like if it goes to the palm lab? And he's got claws? Is he gonna leave? Let's say the white oak is the same under both? Is is the? Is he gonna scratch more on waterbase? Or oil based? Or it's the same?
17:14
Yeah, so it's interesting, because we have the same conversation with a lot of like prefinished products, because they have usually like eight to nine coats of aluminum oxide, or like a ceramic bass. There's a point where you get to heart as far as something that's too sharp like a claw. Right? So when they say it's a 30 year warranty on the finish, they're not talking something that's sharp. But now foot traffic call, it's not so sharp. Yeah, the aluminum oxides are really good. Right, they'll ask they will they'll last 50 years if you take care of them. That's true for an excite finished floor as well. It's just not as hard equivalent if you're to take three quarts oil based finish. And then you wanted to get the same level call it let's just say in a in a on a floor. To get to that same level you need for coal to water base finish. Right? So people tend to think that oil is definitely thicker and better. While oil is not nearly as hard as a water base. Water base has a lot more solids in it, you can mix in a catalyst, even make it more harder. And a lot of people use it for commercial uses as well. So there's there's a lot of benefits oil has a lot higher voc content, takes long time to dry, smelled permits overhaul was water based there
18:30
isn't oil, walnut, Amber more over time versus water does water kind of lock in the color I know that tends to be the VOC is just something that people are primed with, with paint, no pun intended. But it does seem like clients when I bring up the fact that hey, the color is gonna stay more locked and want amber with the sunlight. With water versus oil. That seems to be a pretty, you know, nail in the coffin, if you will, commitment to water. Is that something that? Yeah, that's correct. But
18:55
yeah, that's true, because oil it has, it has properties in it that kind of attract the sun, you know, which would be your ambering. And within months, it can start to turn color and that's often tough on Well, for us to explain that to clients, you know, until they see it. Now past clients they've seen it and they deal with and they're trying to find ways to mitigate that. Yeah, oil or water base does have a lot of white in it, that helps block the sun. Okay, and then and then so there's different ways like that, that you can use that for, for kind of slow that Ambreen process.
19:28
Walk us through and you know, we'll probably dice this podcast up into the first part will be the technical side of the woods. another follow up question, then maybe the second half will be more of the business side of it. So I think people listening running a business whether one thing I've always enjoyed about businesses about 60 70% of whatever business you're in is the same right? Whether you're making microphones or shoe laces or wood floors or homes, how you run a business, hire fire encourage people is going to be the same as your speciality that's different. So right now we're talking about of course, the speciality of wood floor, walk those through that are I'm familiar with a wood floor installed, why don't we go back and forth between both my point of view and your point of view of just all that said, and wood floor. So obviously I'm building a house, I get to the, you know, the framing stage. I've got sheetrock is in and we've selected in this case, let's let's call it five inch wide oak, which is extremely popular in our market. So I'll obviously have you price it out, I'll get a sample approved from the client walk us through the importance of the wood acclimating, you know, sack a little bit about the moisture, and just some of the some of the complications that go into a proper wood floor install so that you have generations or decades after the fact so that it's a successful install.
20:40
Yeah, um, yeah, so really, at the end of the day, like moisture is by far our biggest problem. Like if you want to focus on on just the problematic standpoint, it's when we meet up, we talk about it, we get our color, you know, the colors, there's a whole slew of colors we can pick from, but eventually we narrow down to our one or two or three options, right? Yep. Certain words are a little bit more durable. Certain words a little bit more stable, stable, meaning they move left to right, or they expand and contract. That's usually our biggest, maybe sore spot or more, maybe the largest issue that can become prevalent in the floor, and you can start to see the movement.
21:17
And that would be based on moisture, right? So like, porous material. And if there's more moisture in the air, the wood will swell. And if there's less moisture in the air, it'll
21:26
shrink. Correct, right? Yeah, correct. Okay. Yeah. So there's certain markets, like the Midwest that there is, there's humid seasons, typically through the summer months, and then dry seasons through the winter. So it creates a lot of challenges. As far as movement, there's always times where they're just like, okay, hey, we can handle so much moisture, you know, and then it's gonna start to move. There is a there is a, like a range, we say like 35 to 50% relative humidity, meaning how much humidity is in a certain section of air, right. And that can be controlled through different things that builders bring up and different air exchangers and stuff like that.
22:03
I think people don't realize how hard that is, it's become more and more something that I talk to clients early on in the process, and we'll put an allowance in there. It used to be for a long time was winter heat. Everyone got that? Hey, it's really cold. We don't have a furnace in, you know, our windows are in we need, you know, it's January, it's negative 22 weeks, every year in January. That's really fun. And you know, we need to have temporary heat in your house so that, you know, footings don't heave people get that people don't understand, especially if they're not from our climate is that come July and August. You know, your humidity outside is 90%. You know, if you don't have your AC hooked up, which is really is a dehumidifier now. We actually rent DB large scale dehumidifiers and fans, right? You guys will come out and you'll put a moisture meter on the sub floor. And what range does the sub floor have to be at? Yeah,
22:53
we ideally is below 12. Technically, we'd like to see below 10. But yeah, we ran in the tall range. Yeah. So the sub
22:59
floor has to be 12 or 10. Before you'll quit, and if not, you'll have to wait. And you'll call the builder and, you know, you'll say, Hey, Mark, your sub floor is too humid. You need more dehumidification or, you know, whatever, we have to wait, correct? Yep. Correct. And if it's too high walk, let's Why don't we go through this kind of the pros and cons of this. Let's say you were to bypass that warming and put it in at let's say 20% sub floor? And what would be the long term effect of doing something?
23:25
Okay, so yeah, this will this will bring a part of the probably the main most major issues and a lot of inspectors will will look into this and look at history of like furnaces to see like where it was installed, and what percent humidity and stuff like that. When you do so here's the deal, when you do something that's too high or anything, let's just say above 12%, I'm expressing these wider planks, say the standard is five inches wide. And that seems to be the trend, even just throughout the Midwest. A lot of clients like to get wider and wider. So it creates a bigger and bigger or a larger and larger problem. Potentially, if you install it too high, you will start to see some movement. You know, usually it's within a couple months, takes a little bit of time, the flooring starts to move, all the grains start to expand. And unfortunately there a push up against each other and the Florida start to buckle. I mean, they'll come together and right at the seams will start to left like a little ridge just a little ridge. Yeah. And so you'll you'll even see a lot of like photos, you'll see buckled floors and not even like super bad because especially like a white oak it, it can move. And it's fairly stable. It allows itself to move like that, and then it will shrink back down. Depending on how bad it gets out of hand. That can create a problem though, if it moves too much. And comes up too high. It'll either lift that board right off the ground, or it'll start pushing out walls. Pushing on walls. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because if you if you envision a five inch floor and you've got let's just say 50 cracks call it or spaces and they move a 16th that has to go somewhere. Either it's going up or it's going on the flooring. It has a lot of power. I mean, you gotta realize it's a natural product. And with moisture, water, it uses water to grow and to live. Yep. Right. So there's a lot of things that you can go and technicalities with that, which is pretty neat. But it forces us, especially in the Midwest to find ways to kind of, you know, encourage us to keep within a certain range.
25:17
One thing I've never asked before just coming to me now is so we obviously, personally, I like to do site finish, as you know, so you install the wood raw, usually three quarter inch thick, I believe, and then you'll, you'll, you'll coat it three times, he'll sand it on site, and then we're done. I just personally, I just like the way that looks. But the bottom is not sealed. Is that correct? Is still raw, right? Is there a problem with one side being sealed and the other sides being robbed? Are they enclosed? Because the top is all sealed and air can't really get underneath that floor?
25:48
Yeah, so good question because most moisture problems come from well, either an either an appliance for sure, you know, which is an obvious one, or from underneath. Typically, a slab that was poured in, basements are usually more humid, blah, blah, blah. But we lay, it's called a product called Aqua bar. Or some people can envision just like tar paper, right? So oil laden, it and it will reject moisture. So no matter what it allows the Florida breed, but it helps with that moisture. And now if you were to get a if you had a puddle of water per se on the floor, like it can, that finish can handle it for so long. And then at some point, it's going to start to seep into the into the floor opens up a can of worms as far as issues. But um, as far as the question of whether moisture is kind of held back, I mean, that paper used to hold back most of that moisture or on
26:37
the bottom side. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. So going back on to the the order of this. So we have you guys come out you you test the floor. Okay. It's, it's 10%. We're good to go. So how long ideally would you know, let's say 3000 square feet of, you know, comes out from the manufacturer. It's it's laid on the floor? You guys want it to acclimate to the house? Walk us a little bit through why do we want the wood to acclimate? In the house? What's the process? Yeah,
27:02
so really, we like to see are two things we look at our target target things that we look at, as a relative Committee in the House, just see where we're at for stability on that. And then the moisture in the sub floor, and then the moisture in the hardwood. Right. So the biggest thing you need is within three to four point, percentage points. Usually the hardwood comes out between five and six and 7%. That's why we say we'd like to keep it below 10. Right. So now within three to four percentage points. If you are creep up into 12. Sometimes it can be not a big deal. It's just okay. Now is the builder aware of it? Are they making steps to amend it?
27:38
Is that just because you have a big difference? And so that that moisture, I assume would go from more moisture to less moisture in the product?
27:45
So rack because not Yeah, exactly. Because of the sub floor, let's just say is 20. And now we have flooring that always comes out at five to 6%. You can just imagine where that moisture is going in
27:56
the dry fibers of the array. Yeah, yeah. And it
28:00
even if you lay down that paper, it's just eventually it's going to permeate through that never gets way up to the staples, whatever it is. So that's probably the biggest thing we'll check out, we'll come out we'll take a look, we'll drop the wood. We'd like to see it acclimate for a week if we could. Technically, from a standpoint, you would have to rack the whole floor, meaning you have to lay out all the boards, and then let it acclimate. I have never seen that right of you. And how often does that happen? It doesn't happen like we rack out all the time. For the most part, most hardwood flooring experts will will rack up the whole floor. And over the course of two or three days as you're installing it. It's alchemy I see. Right. So it's it's already getting that and that's already from a standpoint, you know, from from movement in the wood that already by itself is is can be worth much more than just stacking a bunch of wood in the house for a couple of weeks. Right? And then now's the air can go on all four sides roughly or three Yes, you just rack it out in the air can just adjust and all you're trying to do is get get it so that that moisture content, the wood is getting close to that moisture content and environment try to equalize it correct. And that's why I say when you take the three points of you know if they're already so close, right within two three percentage points. acclimating isn't, it isn't so stressful, or it isn't like, Hey, this is something that we really need to do. Most time acclimating is really nice when you're going into a space that has high moisture, and you know what your what it says such a low moisture content.
29:23
So we've got our wood floor down and we've wrapped it out. It has you know, we've had all our moisture meters and now you obviously you nail it all together. And then you'll do your sanding coat. Yeah. And then, for us anyway, we'll usually have you do your secondary coat. So we've got two coats on it, and then we'll have you cover it. Because now that floor is going to be unseen out for about eight months or six months or however long it's going to be now and then we'll have you come you know, maybe three weeks before you know the client moves in. And you do your final buff code.
29:52
Yep, yep. Correct. Yeah, usually we it's a finished product, as you know. So there's a lot of things that have to happen before we come back in you Easy will let you know painters come in and sometimes even cleaners and then we just, we feel like if we can clean up, maybe call it everyone's masses in a way, or just whatever, there's always things that happen and dust that gets on the floor or whatever. And so it allows us to clean everything all up to what you know, to our standard, and then we'll final coat it and typically clenched moving in either the following week, or how long
30:18
will that wood floor last for? As long as they last before they need to do a sand and recoat?
30:25
Okay, so typically, you know, pets and kids are the number one driver of reasons. I mean, if you really want to get really into it, but they do say three to five years for a buffing code, meaning you're just lightly buff or scratch the finish encoded again, and then eight to 10 years for a reset. Which is mean like a full strip off all the finish this thing and redo it again. Okay. Yeah. Have we seen Florida go 25 years? Absolutely. No, absolutely.
30:50
I have to imagine a lot of that is personal taste. And, obviously, you know, if you're a family, like, you know, I have three little kids, right? You know, I mean, I see all the scrapes and whatever from I can probably even remember like, Hey, that was from, you know, the Tonka Truck. Oh, yeah, I was from Christmas of 19. Oh, yeah. Like, it's just character. And then you decide. Usually, I would imagine a lot of people probably do a Santa Rico right before the sell the house typically. I've always said that about remodels that you should remodel the house and you're enjoying it. But there, you hear about stories where people remodel their house just to sell it and like, well, you know, you missed out on, you know, the enjoyment. Oh, yeah, you might as well have enjoyed it. Oh, yeah.
31:26
Going with that actually is kind of interesting. Because people like to say like, you know, hard to Florida's like a century old product in a way, right. And so everyone's kind of like, well, what does that mean? You know, so you might typically live in a house for 510 15 years. And then like, you say, you re sanded or the new client comes in, and the new person comes in, and they want to change up the color. So they re sanded. So they say that you can use these reefs and Florida like one time for every millimeter. Right? So like, if in three quarters, there's like seven millimeters or close to that, let's just say it's like, technically, almost at seven times now, Has it ever happened? We have gone through once or twice, but it's really rare. Yeah, you know, it might be a floor that had 100 year old 400 year old wholesales and retaining the eagle through it,
32:09
you had mentioned about moisture content and for those listening, so down in the basement, like our most recent home, you know, I like wood floor. And so if I can, again, going back to the air quality, even if we get wood floor in the basement, now we have a concrete slab and all the homes that we build we're gonna have in Florida hydronic heat, so you're gonna have in floor heat there. You know, we're big. So I'm taking my cues from you. But I'm not, I'm not really comfortable putting, you know, solid wood. When I say solid? Well, you know what I'm saying. But I'm not putting solid wood all the way down. I want engineered on the bottom. And I want real wood that I sand and sight finish. I think one thing that people often get Miss represented when they come through is they'll say, Oh, is that engineered floor or real wood? Well, it's both in that case, right? Because it's real wood on the top. Because you're standing it's a sight finish. It's solid, down to you know, the cause you can sand it seven times. Yeah. But then the bottom it walked through why do we need the bottom to be engineered? What is the benefits of engineered wood? In a basement setting?
33:11
Yeah, so that's good question. So on a three quarter solid, as you say it, right, that's a solid wood all the way down. And you can sand all the way down with the the tongue and groove system is set up. Right. So in an engineering product, a lot of times you'll get like a range of three to like five to six millimeter of real hardwood on top. And that's just a sheet of hardwood. Right. And if you want to envision it maybe three sixteenths inch thick, and that allows us to sand and finish and do that process and maybe sand the floor four to five times. Right? So the the substrate or underneath is typically a Baltic birch, a lot of plywoods are made up of kind of similar properties. But it allows that floor and that that that moisture to either either be picked up within that and not move so much just super stable. It can pick up moisture and shatter it better than a lot of materials. So yeah, a lot of kind of the issue maybe 10 years ago, even as you say people would say, Well, hey, I don't know, we don't want to engineer. That's fake. Right? And that was the the idea. It sure was at that time, you'd only get like a half a millimeter and you could not sand it. Right? Well now, we know that value the properties of an engineered product, and we liked that more stable. Price points have come down. So it almost matches that three quarter solid product. And then you can sand it four or five, six times, which most people know that they'll never do it that many times anyway.
34:34
So you have the benefit of both the stability, and you have the availability to sand it and record it. Yep, correct. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's, let's switch a little bit to the business side of things because you have a 30 person company, which is pretty amazing. So earlier on in the podcast, you were saying that basically once a year you're adding you know, kind of an employee, walk us through so you got 30 People now, you know, do you guys work with consultants like how do you do personality tests? How do you get a company it was pretty me Isn't your, you know, four times five times bigger than my little company? And it's just a lot of people to manage? Yeah. How do you end up managing a company of 30? People?
35:09
Yeah. Interesting enough, we had, we were approached by a guy that just said, had mentioned, Hey, would you guys be interested in, you know, write some sort of consulting or whatever. And he was referred by someone else. And so I called them up and said, you know, absolutely, why not? You know, of course, you get a lot of those phone calls. I mean, as anybody would, I mean, now, it's like every phone call these days, but at the end of the day, it was it was well worth the trip and the journey that we went on, a lot of times, you know, you feel like you're spending a lot of money for what, right? Like, in this doesn't help lay a floor. Right? If you think about it. So we, we, within our company, we have a lot of customer interactions, right? So as an owner, I feel like I want to be in front of every customer. Well, that's impossible, right? It really is. There's just no way. Our guys are always constantly in front of people. Matter of fact, they're in front of them more than I will ever be.
36:01
Right. So they now they represent your company, they are your company,
36:05
they are a company. Absolutely, yeah, so we've understood that in order to better our company, and to build that we've got to focus on them first, primarily. So we've set up some customer relationship, you know, training sessions, sessions and whatnot, we kind of embraced the solo DISC assessment, kind of like a personality kind of assessment and helps people understand how they are and how they interact with people in the workforce, drag clients, you know, stuff like that. The whole goal is mainly just to build their people. And, and obviously, to help them grow within themselves, and then also just to build a better interact with the clients. Right? Ultimately, we felt like if they were to quit tomorrow and quit tomorrow, and they were able to, to be a part of this process and be a part of this culture that we have, we've, you know, driven in a way we've just done some, maybe it's a service to them, you know, rather than worrying so much about hey, this is Alpine, Alpine Alpine up and no. So I think they've, as long as they've understood that, then primarily, they know, we're concerned about them, and then they give back in their own ways that they can. So we did we did, we were approached probably six, seven years ago, we took some disc assessments that kind of goes through, like where you are in a in a four different quadrants. And you know, some people might understand what it is and, and quick searches can can give you an idea. And then we had consultants come in and explain their versions of this DISC assessment. We actually just last Friday, a week ago, Friday, we did another consult, not a Duluth came down and and they did a whole nother kind of variation of it. And then our guys were able to be subjected to another interesting side of it. And then it kind of gives you like, your own personality, like your type, and then also gives you like a workplace type, what your workplace kind of forced you to do and how you help fix that and work with it and understand
38:00
it. How do you implement that? So I get, I mean, I love personality tests I love, you know, you kind of always know what you are. And it's always kind of fun and fascinating. But after you read that, and you're like, Oh, it's a little bit like, you know, I'm not into reading horoscopes or anything was kind of like you pick and choose the things you like you like, Yeah, that's great. And then you know, what do you do with that? Once you have that information? How do you implement it into your company? I mean, are you moving people around?
38:21
Oh, yeah. Before I have oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So we actually we met with the guy and he was super interesting. He he came in, he started off his presentation. He said, I know your your bookkeeper is I know your estimators. I know who the two owners are, you know, there's two owners. I know what your salesman is. And I also know who you're the guy like to kick his rear end. Yeah. Okay. So of course, everyone's just like, Whoa,
38:44
he got your attention.
38:45
You got our attention. Our bookkeeper came in, said hi, I sat down right by him and talk about our book, or pen and booklet and started writing notes. instantly knew what that was. I came in about 15 minutes early, shook his hand Adam came in, we shook his hand. Our salesman came in, shook his hand, the only three people to shake his hand. Right. Interesting. And then our estimator came in and he literally, I mean, like, it looked like he almost crowd of the back had ducked down behind everybody and just sat there. Right. And then the guy that came in that he was like the kickers, you know, and the minute you said that that guy stood, he stood up, not stood up, but he like stiffen and he looked over at him he's like, Yeah, that's right you Oh, wow.
39:27
And we all burst out laughing as you guys all know. Well, we didn't
39:31
know really at the time only he had a sense for a bit just based on what he knew. Oh, so we were all just like shocked and we were all in laugh and and whatever. And he just said that just based on people and colors and what they drive up and all that. So now utilizing today, we do we have every new employee take these tests, and we actually drives a lot of our decisions on whether we are not
39:55
interesting two out of curiosity, that person that was the one to kick his butt too. Did Did he fire him? Or is he still with
40:01
us? No. So you so interesting enough, so those type of people can handle a ton of stress. Yep, a ton. So this instructor was a D personality himself. And in this person, Vaughn, he actually he's part of one of our union company that we have as well. But they can handle stress like no other, greater decision making use a bigger, bigger picture person. Interesting. Um, they, they relate to these people as like eagles, right? They're always want to just plow forward and and get her done focus on tasks. So they're actually, you do need them. Yep, you actually need everybody in these in these circles. But it usually takes like that type of person to kind of set the precedent in a way. Like, where are we going kind of thing? Right? And then everybody else kind of follows. Interesting. So yeah, it was really interesting, like, but you're not now since we've, we've done this a few different times. So let's just say that D, and that estimator, they used to clash, there are two oldest employees. Yeah. They would clash. I could see this, I would like, what's wrong with you guys? Honestly, this is, what are you doing? And after we did this, and we kind of went through the process, I think they realize the value each other. And they actually grew to respect each other.
41:18
Do you think this DISC assessment, I can see why BV at my initial bias is like, I see how it'd be very beneficial to a larger company. Do you think it's equally beneficial to a smaller company? You know, I have five employees? Oh, absolutely. Think it's Oh,
41:30
we tested our wives? We tested everybody. You tested your wife? Oh, absolutely.
41:33
But there, but just to be clear, your wives work within the company? No, they don't owe you? Oh, no. So I would pay for it. So you know, this is fascinating. Okay, so I would test my wife, what would be the value of that?
41:43
So if you think about it, there's there's four things kind of either your task oriented or your people oriented? Right, one or the other? Can you be both? Or no, you can be both, you'll have you'll have versions of both. But you're generally you're kind of one or the other. Okay? Right. So tasks, you want to get stuff done, you focus on the process, blah, blah, and then people you just need people to survive. Yeah, or you need people to work with you on a visit all the time. Um, so there's a lot of things that I would like, I would be like, even with my own wife, so her and I are both like, well, they see either you're kind of like an eagle, the different version of it, too, but like an eagle, or you're like a parrot. Or you're like a dove reader like an Oh, yeah, I was like processes engineers, or architects, they like to work by themselves. They just, you know, our estimators kind of like that. Just real concise, perfect, you know, get things. They're part of, like a task
42:37
that they ask a lot of who questions? There you go, I
42:41
never thought of. Oh, yeah, there you go. No,
42:45
I'm definitely not Oh,
42:47
okay. But see, like, this will tell you kind of where you're at, in the best part is it allows you to, like, just manage relationship with amongst your employees, and then also with people that you work with every day and clients. And then
43:02
Interesting enough, I mean, obviously, our sales cycle is a lot longer than yours. Right, and you interact sometimes with the clients, you know, usually the staining meeting or something like that on site. But you know, let's say it's a day at most, where, you know, I'll build the clients, you know, maybe it's a year year and a half, what would it be a benefit for me to actually test my clients?
43:20
It would, you could if they would let you so they'll give you like a 20 page report, okay, even like now we got like a six page one kind of highlighting, you know, what these values are like, and what they treasure and whatever. It would definitely help you and your relationship or your ways to manage them. Right for them to know how you are. Yeah, for sure. But I don't know if they're gonna spend the time like in our commitment that you would write right so for you like I can use the see someone to some degree and be like, Hey, we're gonna hire this person. What are how are they treating people? Are they focused on what they're doing? Are they more focused with people do they like doing their thing? Right? There's things like, driving up and red truck is more like a parrot personality. They like people I call it like sales. They like look at me kind of personalities. Right? Which is fine. Yeah, you need that person that dresses like a lot of black because usually like your CDs or whatever, they just don't want to be seen. They just want to be kind of blend in the in the blackness and they're just doing their thing. You need those. You need estimators, you need people that deal with all the tasks and all the upkeep items, bookkeeping, all that is perfect. Right and then you need the DS like I mentioned, the eagles that kind of provide the vision and kind of the direction of the company. And then the doves they're like the hardest working they literally they won't they're not they're not good at like offending people. They're most loved usually. Um, if you were to look at like, the DA is you know, SC there's a lot of like, like 10% is like a D of a general population. 25% is like an I just think of, you know, like a lot of business owners or DS they I have to be right. What are you? I'm an I D. Okay, so I'm, I need people. What can I use? Like my d like to work hard and focus on stuff, I need that as like a battery. I need that to recharge. Right? But I ultimately like people, yep. Right. And I like to get out. And I like to forge relationships and be friendly and have fun, you know, a lot, a lot of times they say the eyes are just all about fun. Right? Make things inspiring and happiness, you know. But then there's about a 35% of the population is like, as like, you know, like the white call it a duck, right? Like a white dove. They don't offend people and stuff like that. So that'd be your acids, and then your sees as like another like, 25%
45:42
interest in going back to because I didn't quite get the answer to it. What was the benefit of testing your family members that were not part of the company? So testing your wife, for instance? How does that help? Just help? Oh, Stan, so Yeah, happy wife happy life?
45:55
Oh, I kind of kind of it does, because you think about it. If you are, let's say an AI. Yeah, right. You need a lot of people, you need a lot of action, you like chaos, blah, blah, blah. And your wife has like a seat not saying that. That's very bad. But typically they conflict. Right? Your wife's like, why are you always altered shoving an ACO they're being me, me me kind of thing, right. And I would rather we just blend in the background, not saying that that's how, you know that is and they can coexist, they do all the time. It just you need you need. Like, if you've got two people that are or people that are married, that are more people oriented? Well, now there's a little bit more less friction. Right? If you think about it, there's less to figure out like you like people, I like people, let's go places, you know. So that's where it's helped us understand our for one is better, our closest significant other than our employees are paid,
46:49
I can I can see that it because I mean, ultimately, when you are suffering at home, whether you're just stressed at home, for whatever reason, you know, as you're raising kids or your dad, and you're going through the seasons of life with your children, or whatever, yeah, whatever it may be health, sickness, any of those things. It just sounds like this tool just gives you a very meaningful tool to engage with people. And you're using it in a business setting, which is very helpful. But really, it can be used to any person, any relation really
47:16
any relationship, I actually wish would have done this. I wish I would like I did a whole bunch to college and whatnot. And, you know, they're all beneficial. But I wish I would have been like almost forced to do it and actually do something with it. Yeah. I mean, now, when we go to pick up a new employee, we're like, Hey, we're interested in this person. Now. I mean, I've come in the shop at like, 1030 at night, and there's four guys looking at her, because they post results wherever it's at. And they're like, Oh, he's gonna be an ID, or he's gonna be this or whatever. And they're already like telling, like, trying to contemplate where this person is going to fall. Right? Right. And then also to that you do you hire based on that you need a bookkeeper, you're not gonna go pick up an hire for bookkeeper, right? It doesn't work. It just doesn't work. They're not that's not a good fit for him. Right. Right. And vice versa. Interesting, you know, so there's a lot of different things that we've learned from that. It just allowed us to, for one for the people to for our people to understand each other. And then clients, like there's clients that are unhappy, there's clients that are happy, and there's ways to to help both sides
48:12
of you within a company of 30 people. I mean, you've obviously it's a very generic question how to deal with conflict management, but you have a story or anything like that of like how, you know, I guess you'd had one word, they basically got to respect each other to have your longest employees. Yeah. You know, that's a lot of personalities. Yeah. So how do you within Alpine? How do you guys, you know, how do you guys manage that little sub teams? I mean, you'd mentioned before you kind of maybe even follow kind of like a military structure, like little groups of pods or squads Can you speak to? How do you manage it when there's that many people?
48:42
Well, so So yeah, so now, like I said, the most likable and lovable is the AI, right? The white duck, right? They're usually willing to do whatever they can they don't want to ruffle any feathers, so to speak. Um, if we have any issues, we send the dubs if you think about, right, it's like it's almost like a peace offering in a way
49:01
A soft answer turneth away wrath.
49:02
There you go with adversity. Exactly.
49:04
I mean, that's a verse I often use I've mentioned in a previous podcast, that's probably the verse that I use the most out of the Bible in a business setting. And I often if I go into a contentious relationship, or if I know my client is upset or an employee's upset or I've used it, you know, even at home and just I wish I need to think of it more frankly, but it's a very powerful verse for me just to think like you know, going in and saying I'm sorry going on with softening somebody you know, so often if you come in with everyone wants to defend their opposition, I do. I do it all the time. I'm very stubborn, you know, a very strong personality so you know, when you come in and your guns are blazing and usually doesn't go very well. No, but when you walk in I like I didn't have to picture this when you go into like a dove. You know, you're going in soft it
49:46
honestly, you go on soft, and it just do it. Um, it almost defragments that hard, prideful, you know, ignorance that we kind of, especially as men, you know, yeah, right, for sure. So we've learned that has helped a lot. We have clients that You're challenging, we usually send the guys that can deal with that better. Or that maybe would be like a dub when approach most situations like that. We won't send the D in there right now to chance. Now, if we have a job that has this brochure, it is yeah. But sometimes though, if you have a client that like a D, he won't respect that, as that's true that I That's true. He will only respect that other D. You're right. We have seen that too. Right? Right. So there's certain situation that you and not like, you always got problem clients. But like, it's, it's allowed our guys to like, come into a place, they introduce themselves, blah, blah, my name is so and so. And then they get a gauge on how the clients gonna be and they try to help them, you know, encourage them and speak in their way.
50:41
I like what you said that, you know, regardless if they've worked with Alpine that they can go out into the world and feel like they've learned a better way to navigate life. I put some words in Yeah,
50:50
totally. That's all. That's all I really care about. Because no plan will always be here, unfortunately. But people will. If you think about it, we will always be here. And if you and of course, I come from good families, you know. Family really first, Yep, great. Because if you can grow within that, then everything else follows, hey, we go out and we install a floor. we sand it, we finish it, we go through a process, some good, some bad, for the most part, we feel are really good. Right? I'm slightly biased. But at the end of the day, that is a process. And that's a business perspective. But from a family perspective, you have to grow people. And at the end of the day, that's long.
51:27
I mean, you touched on something that I want to talk about about family, it's important to me, and we talked about this, you know, before we even came on the podcast of just like, you know, do you are you attracted to other businesses that are also very family orientated? Or because it just happened to be that the businesses that you relate to our family orientated? I don't know, I don't know. I don't know if it's important to know the difference. Yeah. But it isn't. It's, I can tell you that as someone who's worked with you for a long time, and you're one of our, you know, Inner Inner subcontractors and our partners that we work with, and partner with, I mean, I called you for parenting advice. And you gave me some cool ideas of like, how do you set up, you know, like, you know, as my kids get older, you have a lot more kids, and they're older than I am. So it's like, I love to pick the brains because I do feel that being a dad, and being a mom, for that matter, is a lot like running a business. Totally. Because do you feel like it's analogous to like, not that I view the people that work for me like they're my kids, but like, you want to be encouraging? And sometimes you do have to set boundaries and guidelines. Yeah. I mean, do you? I mean, I often think of things in a family familiar structure. Do you think of business? Oh, I guess where do you think the parallels start and stop in owning a business? And essentially having kind of a family effect? If you will?
52:36
Yeah. Yeah. So a few of our employees have large families as well. And, and we've noticed that a lot of conflict resolution has been taken place their whole lives. If you think about right, they've been dealing with the brother, they can't go on within the system that they love, but yet they fight. You know, there's always resolutions, and there's conflict all the time. So they've had on the job training since since they're born, right. So if you think about it, that's a powerful. That's a very interesting, and that's right. So already, we're not. And of course, I'm not saying they're all like that, but like, that's kind of like, well, we're exposed to it, we're exposed to it. And that's how we feel like, there, it always be there. But now if you can just better understand it and a lot of outburst, or problems or whatever you want to say they're not necessarily they're not like necessary in a way. It's just because we don't understand each other, right? Or because it goes
53:26
back to your DISC assessment. If I can understand the other person. It's a fundamental way to understand how to communicate, yeah,
53:32
yeah. And you can solve so many problems. I mean, 10% of the problems are real problems. And then obviously, as you as you solve and fix problems you grow up at anyways, and so it's okay to have problems now. It's, it's to understand that and in respect that we're trying to move forward on something.
53:46
You guys have large families you had mentioned. So there's walk me through this again, you had there's four brothers that have married four sisters of another family.
53:56
Well have that right. It's, um, it's not brother, not four brothers, but I've got so there's four Jenkins, okay. Married to four jobs a sense. Okay. Right. So there's like my brother Adams married. So we have a lot of cousins in this scenario. There. Yep. Correct. Mutual? Yep. Correct. Yeah, yep. Yeah. So that's an interesting note. I am of course, we've paid attention to it. And that goes, I mentioned earlier, a lot of like the diner moms that said, somebody along them lines and of course, it's definitely unique. Yeah, you know, just tells you that there's large families we're at,
54:27
well, strong, fat, strong family values, I mean, loyalty. I mean, one of the questions that I was gonna ask you at, this is what you know, of the people that work for you, how many are related. And I had brought someone on recently on a podcast that they were third generation. And they had talked about how in order to work within the company, the family dynamic for this particular company, they had to work for five years outside of the company, or gaining major promotion before they could work for the company. And that was the way that that company decided and they have several 100 employees. Is that was there a way of making sure that the family wasn't complacent, and that was bringing value to the family company. And you guys talked, I thought it was really, it was really insightful. I was like, really blown away. Like, that's great. Whoever thought of that was very forward thinking in terms of like Ryan, you know, making sure that you had new ideas and like, it didn't become, you know, steak netic. State leadership level, I was just curious, as a family, you and Adam are brothers, and you have a lot of family members. How have you navigated hiring family? There's got to be some dynamics that even though everyone's you know, you have a good network, there's going to be issues that come up. Yeah. How have you decided to, to navigate that in the future?
55:38
You know, we have? It's interesting. You say that, because we haven't really like we're not old enough, I think or been around long enough. I mean, our boys are starting to get old to this age, because what's your oldest? My oldest is 14. Okay. Yeah. So even like, in his sake, like, maybe I already recognize this from before this, but like, he wants to work for a company. And he's farming and driving tractors and doing all this stuff that I'm like, No, I'd rather you did it. Sure. Yeah, you can come work and help out in a shop, you know, that kind of thing? Yeah, I would much rather you learn all this other stuff prior. Whether he comes out and goes through high school and then gets a job, I don't know yet. But then he'll probably long since in the company. And, um, but as you said that, like I, I have another brother that went to college, we had, well, we had a bunch of brothers go to college, but they, you know, some came out as engineers, and they worked at the company, and they had their own ideas, right. And they're now they're implementing, like, Hey, you guys should have two screens rather than or have three screens, you know, like an office settings. And, you know, there's a lot of things that they have helped us implement, you know, and then one went through finance. And also, same thing came back here at this company. We did XYZ we did. So they brought new ideas. Totally. Yeah, totally. Right. So yes, help the company. Totally. Yeah. So there's, but I think that naturally happened as my own siblings, right. Yes. As far as next generation, that's hard to say what will happen? I mean, they're getting to the point where they're going to be close, you know? For sure. And even for their own sakes, it's better for them to get out and experience other, you know, fields, I suppose.
57:07
Well, stay tuned. What we'll bring you back in 10 years. Hey, 2022, we had this conversation. Yeah. How did you solve that problem? Yeah, Mark. I did I know I now have 1010 30 kids running. I'm happy to push a broom. Yeah, telling me what to
57:25
do. Yeah, I'm sure that's where we'll be. But Oh, that's funny. What as we mentioned earlier, though, I was going to mention as far as our structure, and a lot of companies, if you think of like the US military, and I didn't go I didn't join the forest or anything. As a no, but I had disrespected you know, how they set up and it's pretty cutthroat in a way like, Well, why how come they're doing this? How come there's only a three man squad, you know, whatever it is, right. So there's a there's a, as regrowing, there's like this, this shift to like, Okay, you're at three employees. Okay, how is this? What kind of problems? Is this come up with? What? How do we present ourselves? And how do we work through these issues, you know, they say as a structure, like the three to five to seven ish is okay. But two to three is really good at fishing, you get in everybody knows each other, he doesn't want to work, right? tend to get a little bit, you know, whatever. There's some things that oh, there now there's six of us. And I don't know these three, but we know these three really good. And you know, it can get a little bit tight in there. But then they say that like a manager can manage about 10 people. Right? So in the military, there's like, a squad of what, maybe eight or something? Seven or eight, and then maybe up to 10. Right? So then in the business world, like if you get to the seven to 1011. It's fairly efficient, you got CEO or president or someone that's running all their guys, and he's a visionary. He's an integrator He's working. He's, you know, working, you know, whatever, right. As a partnership with my brother, Adam Knight, as I mentioned earlier, like, I usually like to think, further than a month out. He thinks, let's say within a month, he integrates he does a lot of like, the day to day operations and stuff like that. So I was in eight to 10 employees, and I was fine. I could do it, no problem. But now I want to get to like the 1112 1314 is too much. Right? So the military's recognize this, so they don't do any groups call it whether it's a squad or any type of like, ranking system, but they jumped from that 10 to 11 group all the way up to 30, you know, to a platoon. Right. So they and the reason for that is anywhere in between this like 1112 to about 28 to 29 it's just utter chaos. It is and we've experienced that interest. And we've been we were we do like we okay, hey, who's gonna book keep this who's gonna manage that now who only have a hiring process? Who's in charge of that? Well, I used to do everything. Right, because that's all we had. There was only
59:55
one of those became kind of like a law of diminishing returns. There's only so much you can manage at one time in one So you exceeded the number of people you could manage. It became very, you had more people but it, you weren't very efficient. No, you weren't very
1:00:07
efficient. And then you were letting things go. Like, I mean, I remember not billing a client for like, 25k. totally spaced out, went back to her, like seven months later, and she fortunately was willing to pay it up. But it's like, you can't do that. Right? Well, you can't. I mean, we're at 15, guys, and I was just, you know, every day, I mean, there's a thing. You can only do so much within a day. Yep. Right. So that's where we, we've always like, been like, Hey, we're kind of at a sweet spot. You know, 30 people, it's bookkeepers, estimators, salesmen, owners, you know, operators, whatever. And then they say you want to jump up from there, you know, 50s increments a 50s. Interesting, though, it's kind of,
1:00:42
I mean, what's the future? I mean, do you guys want to continue to grow and make it bigger? Are you kind of at a sweet spot? Or? Yeah, do you and Adam, look, you mentioned you're kind of more long term visionary. What have you thought and like, the years to come? I mean, where do you see Alpine going?
1:00:57
Yeah, so we've, uh, we've definitely thought, Okay, we're gonna run from we're just Just keep at 10. Guys. Yeah, that's what most companies do either, like, from three to 10. safe, easy. And then I kind of pushed in a little bit, but I was like, well, we gotta let us try to get to 30. You know, and now it's allowed us to, to not be so involved. And so like, just buried in work, you know. But we did, we mentioned earlier that we start up a union company as well. So we're part of that we've sold out some ownership to my to one of my brothers and then to this D person, as mentioned earlier, who was our second longest employee. But we started that up, and then that just allows us like some of our guys there
1:01:38
to be like, gymnasiums, or what's the commercial meaning? Yeah.
1:01:41
So they do a lot of work for like mortal sins. And like these big companies, you know, Ryan, companies, and there's this lab and on the river project, we're doing a ton of work on that forearm and, you know, stuff like that, like, yeah, gyms, restaurants, condos, you know, stuff like that. What we're, what is happening is we're missing out on a lot of big projects.
1:02:00
As you can see, you have the number of people demand it up. Well, no
1:02:03
more only mainly because it was a union project versus Oh, I see. Right? Well, we feel as a lot of our employer that the workforce is young, right, at some point, they hit this 25 to 30. They're like, alright, you know, this was fun, blah, blah, blah, but I'm looking for either more payer, a steadier or more consistent, you know, I guess work day nine, are kind of our idea was that we would run around a bunch of younger guys go through, and they'd be kind of the training for maybe our union company. Right? So just allow them, okay, maybe they've transitioned something like that, yeah, they gotta get up a little earlier, higher, pay a lot a lot, you know, better benefit packages, blah, blah, blah, you know, so there's reasons that we set that up with the idea of, you know, maybe they want to transition to that, now, we're able to still be a part of their lives, they'll be a part of, you know, helping them out down the road. So I'm not saying that's where they would go, but it gives them the option. Right, so yeah, so I had already spent a lot of time setting that up and, and getting in that, you know, traction on that as well. But it just allowed us to, to go into that. So it's now it's like, Hey, do we stay at 30? And then build this other one and transition people into the app they want? Or do you grow? And that's kind of a question we've, we've struggled with, I guess, a little bit like, we want I mean, at some point, you're going to run into so many headaches, you're not going to know what to do you know, right? And that's we've seen companies do that they've grown big, and then they do you guys still use stuff out of state? Oh, yeah.
1:03:30
Yeah. And what was the impetus behind that? Or how did that come about? I know, some younger guys, you'd be like, Hey, drive down to Florida and, you know, do 1000 square feet of whatever. Yeah, come back. How did how did that come about? So
1:03:42
that was, yeah, if you were to look at our website, you can see a lot of projects we've been on. It really came down to we're there's a project in this RS furniture store in Edina, a guy called and said, Hey, would you guys be willing to do it yet to work nights and start in like, five, six days? And we're like, Absolutely. Let's do this. Yeah, you know, so whatever. We jumped on it. And that opened up the doors to maybe I think we're close to 30 stores we've done throughout the company for that country, or that cut for our house furniture stores. Okay. Yeah. So I mean,
1:04:11
we were, we built one client, in multiple states.
1:04:15
It's one so that's, so this is a guy that was in charge of this furniture store. Yep. From out of Baltimore, he's another hardwood floor subcontractor. Right, so we've done all these furniture stores. We're getting close to 30 of them. Just you name it. We've probably been there. Yep. And a lot of it's usually like, they would only stick their stores right like salt Del Monte Dinah here, you know, there's not too many, you know, areas that had put them in, you know, um, and then But then he opened the doors to like the US Naval Academy and some stuff in DC and all over Georgetown University, all that kind of, you know, odd stuff.
1:04:49
So, so you'll you'll get you'll get a job. You'll load up a van of an RV or just a van or
1:04:55
grab a truck with the trailer. Yeah, yeah. loaded up with four or five, six guys depend Hang on what we need and then run from there. on them out there. And yeah, that's, that's been a unique experience. As you say a lot of younger guys, they want they want to go. Yep. I mean, where are we going?
1:05:11
If I was young and single without a family? Oh, let the money's good. I mean, you see
1:05:15
money is good and there's there's times now we're where he will say I don't really care who you send as long as they have an Alpine hardwood add on. Not amazing, you know. So that's what's been so much enjoyment to see. I don't even care. I know that you that you will be there you will be a part of it, that people will be there. You got to do good work, and they're just they don't worry about now.
1:05:33
It's a relationship. A huge relationship. Yeah. Well, we could talk for hours, we're kind of our time's up. Ya know, it's already been four hours. What is where can our listeners find you guys?
1:05:45
Um, so yeah, we're and we have websites, YouTube, or we just post like a youtube deal. Like a YouTube channel? Yeah, well, we're just we're kind of like getting into creating one. Okay, we just posted some, like, Well, we did this or just this this training last week ago, Friday. We didn't post that but we posted another like, kind of like an interview we have done. Okay. You know, showcasing some jobs, Instagram, Facebook, I mean, there's kind of the two so Alpine hardware or website, open hearted mn.com And after multiple projects are posted,
1:06:17
and for those listening, we'll have everything in the show notes while the website and Instagram handles for alpine hardwoods. Thanks for coming on, Anthony and we'll see you in the field shortly.
1:06:27
Thank you much. Alright, see mr.
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