Episode 83 - From Farm Shed to Success: Cabinetry Lessons from Troy and Jo Eiden

Written By Mark Williams

Episode #83 | Troy & Jo Eiden | From Farm Shed to Success

In Episode 83 of "The Curious Builder," Mark Williams chats with Troy and Jo Eiden of Modern Design Cabinetry about their incredible 30-year journey growing their cabinetry business from a small shed to a thriving enterprise with 65 employees. They delve into the importance of customer service, the pros and cons of pre-finished cabinetry, and the challenges in finding skilled trade workers today. The episode is packed with insightful stories, including navigating a water-damaged installation and strategic hiring decisions that helped them shine in the industry.

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About Modern Design

We are proud to say that we are the owners of Modern Design Cabinetry. We work with our awesome team of 66 in our main shop in Cologne and second shop in Norwood-Young America. We have been so blessed to provide custom cabinets to our amazing clients for 33 years.  It is always so much fun to see what we create and the reactions of our happy clients. We'll walk through a house at the end of a project and we say to each other, "Wow, look what our team designed and created!" Never did we think when we first started out in a shed on the Eiden Farm, that we would end up working with so many prestigious clients on unique, incredible projects. We design, build, finish and install both residential and commercial cabinets, which makes for a nice balance and good variety for our team. We have a showroom in Cologne and a few years ago, we added a showroom in Rochester to make it more convenient for client meetings in southern MN. Our team really enjoys working together, and we try to do everything in our power to exceed our clients' expectations. 

Resources:


  • Mark D. Williams :

    This episode is brought to you by adaptive, the software for builders that automates, draws, budgets and bookkeeping with AI. For over a year now, I've been partnered with adaptive, and they've just been an amazing game changer in terms of efficiency in our time, in all our bookkeeping. When from the time we get an invoice, we import it into their system, the AI, codes it cost codes it. Job codes it. All we have to do is review it, pass it through the people internally in the office, all digitally, and then it gets approved and paid all by ACH. It's becoming extremely fast, and saving us countless hours a day and a week when it comes to draws. All of our budgets now are set in adaptive as well. So now when we cost code against the draws, we can do our change orders, and then with a click of a button, we can submit these draws to our title companies or to our homeowners for faster payment if you're looking to save time, and if you're looking to be accurate, I highly recommend adaptive. Additionally, if you'd like to listen to one of their founders share the story of adaptive, you can listen to episode number 15 on the curious builder Podcast. Today, on the curious builder podcast, we had Troy and Joe eidenon from modern design cabinetry, and what a delightful conversation. Hearing how they've expanded their company for the last 30 years and growing it to 65 people. This is going to be an amazing episode for those that are interested in scaling their operation, hearing what works and what doesn't work. Without further ado, here is Troy and Joe Eiden you. Music. Welcome to curious builder Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host today, I'm joined with Troy and Joe iden from modern design cabinetry. Welcome guys. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Excited to be here, excited to have you on your entrance into the podcast has been probably one of the cooler ones. So a couple weeks ago now, we from when we're recording this, we had a charity event for kids with the joy collaborative at one of our past homes, and you guys were it was nice to have you there to help support the charity. But then you guys won the bid. We actually auctioned off a podcast, and you guys auctioned on it. And so I thought that was really cool. I think we'll do that again in the future. So I got to meet you, I think, during the Home Tour, but also during that kind of crazy paint event at the end of the night.


    Jo Eiden  02:03

    So thank you such a fun event. Thank you so much fun. We had a blast.


    Mark D. Williams  02:06

    Thank you very much for helping out with that noble cause. And let's talk about your business. Why don't you give us a little backstory? You guys are located pretty close here. You're out in Cologne, right? Yep. Okay, well, why don't you go ahead, Troy, why don't you, why don't you launch us off and tell us how you guys started a cabinet shop, and we'll get into all the good stuff.


    Troy Eiden  02:20

    So do you want the long version and a short version? Well,


    Mark D. Williams  02:23

    we got an hour, so you I guess I won't answer that. You can decide on that. So


    Troy Eiden  02:28

    we started out on my dad's farm in a little shed. I went to vo tech for it, and then after vo Tech, I three different camera shops, but I built a little building on my dad's farm, and then eventually I went on my own as Joe and I were dating. This is what you're a teenager in your 20s. That was back in 88 Oh, yeah. That doesn't mean nothing. Nobody does it. I would have been about 2322


    Mark D. Williams  02:56

    23 okay, that just helps set the scene in my


    Troy Eiden  02:59

    Yeah, yep. So we started out on my dad's farm. I was doing it by myself, and then Joe would come and help a little bit. And then eventually we hired a couple of part time people, and we were there since 2000 and then we Yeah, 91 to 2000 Yeah, 91 to 2000 and then we bought a building in clone the clone lumber yard. And when we moved to town, we had five people, and we bought it in 2000 and we've added on to that building five times. We grew it from the original building was 8800 square feet to now it's 45,000 square feet. Wow. And then we also bought, a couple three years ago, bought another building in Norwood, which, unfortunately it was the old grocery store building. But that's 23,000 square feet, and we currently have 65 people total that work at modern site. Why?


    Mark D. Williams  03:52

    Unfortunately, just that you ran the grocery store so nobody can eat they gotta eat wood. Or,


    Troy Eiden  03:57

    yeah, no, that was the unfortunate part. I mean, it was a little bit, I didn't know if we wanted to be buying a building that was, you know, their grocery store, but we were told that it's never going to be a grocery store again. But, you know, people are protective about that. So anyway, we made it past


    Mark D. Williams  04:13

    that. Good news is nobody can drive by an egg you anymore,


    04:16

    exactly. Yeah,


    Troy Eiden  04:17

    yeah. So, so we bought that building. And there's currently, I believe, 10 people working there out of the 65 and then we also, three years ago, at the same time, because we like to do a lot of stuff at same time, right? Joe, we started a showroom down in Rochester. So we have a person that runs the showroom down there. His name is Jody. And then we have two installers that are from the Owatonna area, so they can go do installs in Rochester. And then if we have some slow time down there, then they come up to the cities. Wow. So yeah,


    Mark D. Williams  04:50

    I had no idea that your scale was that incredibly fast growing, but also that big. I mean, most of the cabinet shops that I interact with seem to run anywhere from eight to 15. People. And we were laughing right when you walked in, because you had this great hand signal, because on your website it shows 22 people. I was counting. It's like, hey, you've got, you know, you guys as the principals. You've got three shop managers, three in design. We'll get to late to 11 PMS and then six estimators in office. I'm like, wow, 22 and you're like, Nope, it's 65 I'm like, what do you do with 60 that is an incredible amount of cabinetry that's got to be going out the


    Troy Eiden  05:23

    door. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of product going through, for sure. Well,


    Mark D. Williams  05:26

    okay, let's go back before you tell us your gems here on scaling, because I think this is going to be a really interesting story on the scaling. Let's go back to farming. What kind of farm were you


    Troy Eiden  05:35

    up on? A dairy farm?


    Mark D. Williams  05:37

    Okay, a dairy farm? Yeah,


    Troy Eiden  05:37

    we had, we had dairy cows, and we had, we actually had pigs too. Okay?


    Mark D. Williams  05:41

    And how did you know you had a inclination towards woodworking?


    Troy Eiden  05:45

    So I was the oldest of eight, and the first one, you know, to get done with school, and I just, there was just gonna be no way that that financially was probably gonna happen. I always say farming. I mean, yeah, it actually that was what I kind of wanted to do. But I liked, I just like being outdoors and I like building stuff, so I just kind of landed on the cabinetry part of it. I was not a good student in the school. I did really good in woodworking, but that's about it. And Jim,


    Mark D. Williams  06:16

    every kid loves Jim, yeah. How so, how did you, I mean, what are you building? Like, tree forts? I mean, why cabinetry? I mean, there's a lot, there's trimming, there's framing. There's so many other things that have to do with being handy and crap. Like, why cabinetry? Because it seems like correct me if I'm wrong, but, and I'm not even gonna say a stereotype, but like, the path of skill cabinetry is one of the highest ones, in my opinion, right? And I'm not saying that this is true or not, because there's certainly a lot of skill in framing. For instance, like, you know, I really much appreciate I had long time framers for 15 years, and I was one of my project managers. And so I think framing, our framers are often thought of as, you know, kind of like, you know, wood butchers, like they just cut and run and gun, but there's a lot of talent there. So I don't want anyone listening think that I don't respect. But in terms of, like, where I see people in their careers go, it seems like they're younger and framing, because it's a little bit harder in your body, you're out. Then a lot of those that maybe go into trimming, and then a lot of the trimmers end up going into cabinetry. But it was interesting that you skipped those and you went straight to cabinets. How do you How did you


    Troy Eiden  07:18

    I like being warm? Yeah. I knew I'd be working inside. I do like machinery too. So I guess, growing up on the farm, I like welding. I just like building stuff and creating stuff. So I don't know, for some reason, the whatever can probably because of school, because we were able to take wood shop, which is unfortunate. I don't know if we want to go there. Yeah, we do. But the trades, the schools aren't doing as much of the metal shops and the wood shops and the mechanic stuff. So I had four years of that, and I enjoyed that. So that's kind of what led to where I we're gonna we're


    Mark D. Williams  07:55

    gonna put a pin next. I want to come back to what you just said. But why don't we, Joe, what was your in those early years? Because How long did you date before this young stallion? You're like, I better marry him. He spits up his water on camera. It's been a long time since someone called Troy a stallion. How did you What walk us through those early years of, you know, dating, and I assume it was kind of a one man band, and it was the two of you. Or at what point did you start? Actually, we'll go back, you know, talk a little bit of how the business grew in


    Jo Eiden  08:20

    those early years. Thank goodness, after we got married, was a few years in, we are, we have all the house right across the road on the farm. We got bought some farmland from Tony's mom and dad, which is awesome. So we were close by so I could when, as we started having kids, we had four, four kids, so I could go over with the kids. And we could, because he worked so many hours in the beginning, just like these crazy, long days. But we could, thank goodness we were close by that we could go over the stroller and get and the family side


    Mark D. Williams  08:45

    of that's gotta be really nice being home for dinner. Yeah, right. I mean, if you're across the street, talk about,


    Troy Eiden  08:50

    I can't. I came home for supper and then got down and went back over there, right? And worked like you have worked in my oldest daughter. I didn't, unfortunately, I didn't spend a lot of time with my oldest daughter till probably, what, eight or 10. That's why we started to grow the company so that it's easier to take off, you know, at a certain point, once you start building different phases of the business, it's easier to take off some time and not feel overwhelmed before you leave and when you get back.


    Mark D. Williams  09:18

    Right? Yeah, no, I think that's very well said. And I think you know, just given you know that you're at 65 I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on scaling. I feel like that's probably one of my greatest weaknesses, is scaling. I look around at and I don't think time is necessarily a great equalizer in who is scaled or who hasn't. I've been building for 20 years, and we're still a small team. The biggest I've ever been is, like, five or six, and, you know, two is the smallest I've ever been. So I've kind of floated between two and six in my career. But I look at some builders, you know, I know a builder, you know, he's been in business for 10 years. He's got 31 people. I mean, it's just like, you know, some people, that's really what interests them, and they're really good at it. I've just never really put much thought into. But at what point did you realize you wanted to scale cabinetry?


    Troy Eiden  10:05

    I think I don't know. I wanted to grow it a lot more than Joe did.


    Jo Eiden  10:09

    I was always the one that was like, Are you sure about that? I don't know about this. Another addition, because


    Mark D. Williams  10:14

    you were probably doing some you're probably doing anything remodeling ducks as well as cabinetry, or no, just


    Troy Eiden  10:21

    cabinets. So I'll back up just a tiny bit. So when we started dating my wife, or Joe, at the time, when we were dating her, Oh, this might have been after we got married, but her dad was good friends with a teacher. Back in the day they had they had tech edges education and they had these workstations. They were a quarter, they were like a V in a corner, or they were two halves, or they were a quad. And his Joe's dad's friend was a teacher, and he had some things he didn't like on the design of it. So I went out there, modified it. And then I started, I built one. And then he got me into this trade show deal up in, up in Saint Cloud, where it was specifically for teachers. So, so for like, the next six years, I did those, those laminated workstations, and it was file cabinets, countertop, bookcase to and then above was a call center, like a light so we did that for like, six years. So it was, and that's pretty much it like that. You were just locked on that, yeah, for about six years, and then it kind of went away. But we did that for like six years, and it was crazy, because it was like, I couldn't get the order until the end of the school year, and it had to be installed by September so and now I remember it was before we got married, because we did that and built the house in the fall, and that was craziness. I'm surprised we made it to the wedding, because I actually delivered the last class. I mean, the wedding


    Mark D. Williams  11:58

    day would be great. Everyone that comes the wedding. Hey, we need your help. We we delivered the last


    Troy Eiden  12:03

    classroom two days before we got married, and it was, yeah, it was nuts. So we did that. And then eventually we started getting into houses and kind of, that's where we landed. And then we do commercial work too, like we've done my burgers, we've done eye clinics, we've done, you know, a lot a lot of different commercial stuff too, but we're still mostly residential. Interesting.


    Mark D. Williams  12:25

    Wow, what a story. Maybe we'll put a pin in that and go back to the earlier pin about, you know, the schooling. So, like, I graduated 99 I'm 43 I went to Chaska up pretty close to Cologne, for those that aren't from Minnesota. And, you know, we had shop class, Mr. Jacobs. He was awesome shopkeeper, one of my favorite teachers, you know, CO two cars, you know, little whatever. And my dad had a wood shop. He was a builder. So, you know, I would tinker around downstairs. I was not really that talented, but I always enjoyed it. Do you know, at what point did that? Did shop class and shop education leave the high school system, and is that only in certain cities, or was that a statewide thing here in Minnesota? No,


    Troy Eiden  13:03

    it's, it's, it's in some of the high schools, but not all of them, right? For instance, I went to vote tech in Eden Prairie. That was the woodworking deal that was there, and that got closed down during when was that? Was that during the the recession, so around 2007 or eight, they closed down the Eden Prairie vo tech, which was unfortunate, because we would draw people that went to school there and would come work for us. And now it's just up in Brooklyn Park.


    Mark D. Williams  13:35

    What about Dunwoody? Do they, I


    Troy Eiden  13:37

    mean, yeah, they do too. It's, I think it's basically them, Dunwoody and Brooklyn Park, and then I know Alexandria tech, they offer a little bit of cabinets, but it's kind of construction and cabinet. Does Normandale have


    Mark D. Williams  13:51

    anything? I don't think so. I


    Jo Eiden  13:53

    think St Paul technical has a few, yeah, a little small, because I


    Mark D. Williams  13:57

    you know, and well, we'll save this a little bit. All these ideas are coming to my mind here to talk about with you, because you because you had mentioned before we came online that you draw a lot of your shop workers from high schools. Tell us a little bit about where that is now. And I think we're going to see, for instance, a huge explosion in construction. But unfortunately, we have probably a 20 year gap we have to make up. I mean, probably not in your career, and maybe not even in mine. We'll see if it can catch up, because it takes a long time for some of the stuff to get reseeded and, you know, and kind of grow to fruition, so that you can have talent. Where have you seen like, when did you notice that there was less and less people coming into industry that you could hire and draw in? And where do you see it right now? And what? What are you seeing down the road?


    Jo Eiden  14:43

    I think maybe six or seven years ago, we really started seeing that we just could not find anyone to hire, and that's probably similar along the time. Right along the same time that we we joined that trades advisory with the Waconia school, and now we're also with the Norwood school, which has been awesome. But I think the. The wages have finally started to catch up that people are like, considering the trades as an option, and a lot of the students, it's a great option for because a lot of times they're like, gotta go to college. You gotta go to college. No, there's a lot of students at that not, not the best path. So it's been really fun to get into the schools and talk to the students and have them come on tours of our shop and work with the other because we have a bunch of people that there's an electrician, there's a metal shop, there's a whole bunch of people on the Advisory Council with us. So we all go in and we'll do like a meet the trades day and before school, and we'll have 50 students come in and just talk to people about, you know, what it's like to work in the trades. And then maybe with a shop class, they come and tour the facility, so they get to see and they're like, Wow, this is so cool, and a lot of stuff's more, way more computerized than they realize. The bad thing is that a lot of the schools can't keep up with the machinery, because they have really outdated machinery. So then it's they're like, Oh, this isn't any fun. You know, the machinery is not that great, but you go to an actual shop and you're like, wow.


    Troy Eiden  15:57

    In addition to that, the laws haven't caught up either, right? The schools have the old table saws, where you cut your fingers off. We have the saw stop ones, where they can't cut their fingers off. They can cut the boards at the school if they're not 18, but when they come to work for us at 16, they cannot use the saws. And I'm like, the laws, hasn't, haven't caught up to the technology. Oh, yeah, because that's all, it's all laser guided, right? So, like,


    Mark D. Williams  16:22

    if the plane is broken, those clamps, you know, shut down, right? Yeah, yeah. Interesting. Can you get a provisional, some sort of a permit to have people under the age of 18? We're trying


    Jo Eiden  16:32

    to do teacher in the workplace, like Troy would be like an actual teacher in the work, because, you know, such an expert in the field that that's worth that's the angle we're trying to take that, if Troy is an actual teacher, then they can run the saws under him as a teacher. Because I


    Mark D. Williams  16:44

    would imagine I'm blanking on his first name, but one of the state senators is out. Meconia, yeah. Oh, Jim Nash, yeah. I mean, he would be a huge advocate. I know he's big for housing first, and I wonder if there's a way


    Troy Eiden  16:54

    he has been, he's been in our group before he's come to one of the meetings. Yeah. So the school is trying to work with the state on some of that right now. Yeah, yep, interesting, because hopefully we'll get there well. And you can see from the cost standpoint too, you know, school, I


    Mark D. Williams  17:09

    mean, some of these machines now are several $100,000 and so I'd understand how that is not probably doable, but it'd be really neat, especially for a more rural school. And I'm sure why it has to be rural, but maybe that's where a lot of, at least the cabinet shops that I'm aware of are where you could almost, I mean, almost, could the school subsidize it? Could the school pay? Let's say hey, you know, one day a week, for a half a day, is there part of your shop where, like, schools could come in, you could almost, and I don't know if that's something you mean, a cab shop would want to do, but sort of a way that you have all the expensive equipment, plus you're training your future workforce, which is, I assume, what you're interested in. But how could you make that work, other than just like a field trip or a day, you know, make it more of an ongoing thing, because,


    Troy Eiden  17:49

    because part of the problem is, if they can't run that equipment till they're 18, by then, they've already made their choice to go to college, right? So they're left with doing jobs that aren't quite as much fun, like maybe it's cleaning some of the glue off of something, or putting a drawer box there, but I mean, they're looking over going, I want to do that, but they can't, because they can't run that piece of equipment, which is now safe, but The rules or the laws haven't caught up yet.


    18:20

    I This episode


    Mark D. Williams  18:25

    is brought to you by Pella Northland. For 19 half years, I've been building homes, and 95% of all my homes have used Pella windows. I couldn't be happier to call them a partner in our builds and our remodels. Whether you're an architect, a designer or a remodeler, I'd highly recommend Pella windows. They can fit old homes, new homes, reclaimed commercial and really everything in between. Pella is a company that we trust and that we recommend to our clients. Additionally, in management, Peter and N have just been absolutely fantastic people to work with, as well as mentors to me personally. So when it comes time to look for a window, I'd highly recommend Pella windows. Find more at Pella northland.com Also, if you're interested, you can hear episode one, where I interview Peter and Ed together for a great listen on business and Pella windows. This episode is brought to you by Alpine hardwood flooring. They've been our partner now for over a decade, installing all our wood floors on all our new homes, as well as our remodels. And on a personal level, Adam and Anthony jankolo, the owners are just absolutely amazing people. They've been so supportive of my career, as well as doing anything we need to make sure that our clients are happy, and they work so well with our other vendors and trade partners at not only protecting their product, but also ensuring everyone else's looks great. So if you're looking for a wood floor, or for a refinish, I highly recommend Alpine hardwood flooring. How long have those you know, safety machinery been around? The laser you know, the saw


    Troy Eiden  19:53

    stop saws have been around, I think, for probably seven, eight years, and it's actually expanding to other pieces. Of equipment now, so that's really cool to see. And the routers right when they, when they run, that is, they stand there and they push a button, they just watch it. They watch it go. So, I mean, there's quite a bit of the equipment in our shop that is, like, hands free or or really safe, like we have an upcut. Saw you put the board on there. The pusher goes across. It reads it off the list of whatever many pieces we want to cut, and I'll optimize. And it just pushes it and cuts it, and the other the guy goes on the other end, just grabs the piece. I think one thing that I'm


    Mark D. Williams  20:36

    really passionate about is just bringing education to everyone really, but I think, you know, students in particular, knowing that there's some great paths, and as school gets more and more expensive, and I think part of it is a stereotype, I think for sure, let's call it the inner ring suburbs. You know, I actually got kicked under the table the other day of a good family friend, their son is graduating and really doesn't want to go to school, but he's sort of being strong, armed into going to school, because that's what their parents want. Their parents want. And and I had just gotten off an interview like this with someone talking about, you know, housing first, and what they're doing, like, Hey, you can onboard, you know, within eight weeks, you know, I mean, if you want to own a business, I was going through all this stuff, and Allison, I feel just like this sharp kick, and then the mom is kicking me under the table. And I literally called her. I'm like, why are you kicking? Awesome. I mean, I knew why she was kicking, but I wanted her, I wanted her to say it, yeah. But honestly, I think that's probably the that right there, yeah, is the biggest hindrance. We


    Jo Eiden  21:33

    talked about that in our meetings, advisory council meetings, we've talked about loading all the parents up on a bus, having them all come to our shops and have them learn about the trades and how awesome it is, and what the wage you can make in the trade trades, and just how safe it is, and all that good stuff clean


    Troy Eiden  21:49

    it is, and building one air condition it's


    Mark D. Williams  21:52

    become so tech focused too, right? You just mentioned on the CNC machines now, which is, you know, the layout, the drafting. I mean, there's a lot, there's a lot of tech coming into this. And I, I think, you know, in about a month here, we're hosting a panel at the CBSA Summit here in Minneapolis, and there'll be bills from all over the country. And we're having a few, you know, Katie Cath as a local remodel. She has a counter shop, Jay Cath, as well as an Oregon monitor and a few others, talking about AI. And I would argue that I think the construction world more so than, I mean, everyone's gonna be affected by AI in terms of language models and just technology that comes out, right? It's gonna be like a computer. However, I think the one the industry that is the most, not outdated, but old fashioned, to me, is gonna close the gap, because it has the most room for improvement. Look at how much technology has just entered in cabinetry alone over when the CNCS really come on the on the scene and just make, you know, kind of, if you don't have a CNC machine, you it's hard to keep up


    Troy Eiden  22:46

    the shop. I work for an 86 was one of the first ones to have that long ago. Yeah? So I'm old. I got gray


    Mark D. Williams  22:52

    hair. No, I didn't realize. But, no, I didn't know that was the point. I didn't realize CNC machines were that old. Yeah, he was now, but pick up all the drill bits. Yeah,


    Troy Eiden  22:59

    he, he was one of the first ones to have it in the Minnesota area, okay, Twin Cities area and, and I think about, like, five, six years after that, then it started to be more, you know, people were buying them, but he was one of the first ones. Yeah, I


    Mark D. Williams  23:15

    mean, I don't, I've toured a number of cabinet shops, and it seems like they're always upgrading. It's like, oh, I just got a new one, you know, I just had to pull out a mortgage on the house because this one's, you know, several $100,000 but


    Troy Eiden  23:26

    we just, actually, we just bought two new CNCS, so you're welcome to come see it. Yeah,


    Mark D. Williams  23:30

    I would like that. Yeah. Anyway, going back to the the school and education side, I do think that we're gonna, you know, in marketing, I mean, even as a builder, and I've mentioned this many times too, but like, you know, I think there's a place for any interest. If someone's passionate, it doesn't have to be, you know, pounding nails or sanding. I mean, you can if you want. There's that, there's that too, but I'm just saying, like, owning a business actually is a lot less glamorous, but it also can be glamorous. I'm kind of double hedging my my comments here, because it can be both. We know as business owners, like, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. It's really difficult. That being said, there's a lot of opportunity, and I think there's more opportunity right now that will exist in the next 10 to 15 years, particularly in anything to do with homes, HVAC, plumbing, electricians, you know, all these stats, like, for every seven HVAC, you know, individuals that leave the field, there's only one journeyman taking their place. And another stat was like, 10,000 baby boomers are retiring every day. I know that's scary, that's scary, and I don't know the number on this one, but what percentage of the United States businesses are owned by that group? I would argue, very high. So there's a great opportunity to buy a business, and I never, as I started my company, I was 23 I never even, it never even crossed my mind to buy a company. Wasn't even something I even thought about. But even, even if you don't have the money, because the next question would be like, Well, how am I gonna afford this? But, you know, you can imagine, like, you know, let's go back to your your youth. You know, you're 22 years old, starting a cabinet shop. What if? What if your neighbor owned one? And you. Work for him for a couple years, and he's like, hey, you know what? I know you don't have the money, Troy, but how about you? You work a takeover within five years. It's yours. Like, you both win. You didn't have the money to invest in it, but now you get to buy the business. Yep, he gets to either have a legacy moment or to continue it on. Because most of these people, you know, their business has been their their their family member, you know, sometimes in a bad way. I mean, it's been like they've put too much time on it, right? I mean, you spoke a little bit just of how you've had to scale, to get perspective a little bit with your own family. And I think it's really important to talk about these things, because scaling can lead to really good things. But going back to buying a business. I mean, the opportunity to buy businesses now is got to be just at an all time high,


    Troy Eiden  25:39

    yeah, and I agree, in our in our industry, the different vendors we talk to, I ask quite a bit. Most of the shop owners are, like, 50s and above. So there's not a lot of new shops that are starting the last five years.


    Mark D. Williams  25:55

    I mean, now's a good time. I know you guys have four sons or four children? Yep, um, how many of them are in the business? Yeah, the two boys are, two boys are, and have you guys talked about what that transition looks like down the road? A little


    Jo Eiden  26:07

    bit. The bad thing is, he goes, I see how stressed you guys are. I don't know about this, especially on some days he goes, I don't know about this. And


    Troy Eiden  26:14

    the question is, how can I even afford this, right? And I'm like, Well, we have to figure that out. We're not gonna set it up for failure, right? Because when I do the handoff, whoever that might be, I do not want it back like five years from now, like


    Jo Eiden  26:29

    we wanted to continue to succeed.


    Mark D. Williams  26:32

    I mean, to have as many people as you have. It was at 40 What did you say? 65 Oh, my word. 65 I just, you know, I mean, you have processes. And I mean, correct? I don't, do you have an internal HR when you get that big? Or do you? Yeah, that's Joe. I can talk with you. But, I mean, I assume you have systems. So let's go. Let's shift the conversation a little bit. Actually, one thing I want to address, if there are people that, let's say, like myself, or anybody, really, how do you get involved with local high schools? How do you get involved with education, and how do you get no, I love this. I don't know who started this. What was it called the trades, trades Advisory Council. Trades advisory is that a statewide thing? Is that an area thing like, what is that? I


    Jo Eiden  27:14

    think that the Waconia school hired the gal to be in charge of that that was part of a job. So they actually, you know, could see that there was going to be a need, but Dave ailings was, oh yeah, true, the shop teacher from that waco high school who had been there,


    Troy Eiden  27:27

    that was, like, his deal. He wanted to start, like, yeah, and he got it started about a year before he retired,


    Jo Eiden  27:33

    yeah. But that was Yeah, his dad. His dad was also a shop teacher. So that was kind of their legacy. They wanted the did the trades, just to be more promoted, and people see the value of it, rather than just college, college, college. Think of it as an option. The trades are definitely an option, a great option to consider.


    Mark D. Williams  27:51

    I mean, I saw something in the paper the other day, and this, you know, it was like a linesman for, you know, Xcel Energy can make $90,000 like, wow. Okay, that's amazing. And I think, to your point earlier, Joe, that now wages have caught up, and because supply and demand is it's, you know, making its market presence very felt. Hey, if you don't have that position, guess what? Those that are remaining get to charge more. Yeah, and the good rise to the top, and then before now. Now, guess what? We actually have enough money to go and pay good talent, and you can attract people into the field versus, you know, because so much of it, it seemed like for so long was those that were passionate about it were going to do it, sort of regardless of the pay. Yeah, but how great would it be if you could have both correct, right? And I've kind of recently said that I think I've undercharged my clients for 20 years. I think I'm finally, like, aware enough to be like, Okay, I now know my own worth. I don't know. We


    Jo Eiden  28:43

    were the same way. Yeah, we feel that looking back the beginning, we were just giving, giving stuff away. Yeah? I


    Mark D. Williams  28:49

    mean, you don't know, you don't know your numbers. You don't know you're in. You think you got to chase every ball down the street and like, Yeah,


    Troy Eiden  28:55

    well, when you're smaller, too, you're doing everything. So you're always getting you're always feeling like you're behind, so the number part of it, you don't dig into it as deep as you should. So you just like it feels right. Keep going kind of a thing.


    Jo Eiden  29:10

    Yes to everything, yeah, every single project. So Joe, I


    Mark D. Williams  29:13

    know you handle the bookkeeping. Is that right? Is that all in house? Do you have any? Do you do any sort of all in house? Wow, impressive. Yeah. HR and bookkeeping? Wow. Double salary.


    Jo Eiden  29:23

    Thank goodness. Really great. So


    Mark D. Williams  29:28

    when did you realize, let's go through the scale thing, because I think you have a really interesting story here. Tell us a little bit about when you recognize the need to scale. You mentioned earlier eight year old daughter. Like, was there some aha moments? And, like, did some of the scaling just happen organically, like, walk us through some of the growing pains. You've done this for 30 years. It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows here. No,


    Troy Eiden  29:48

    when we moved to town, right? We we were on my dad's farm with a shed that I paid for, and I was paying a little bit of rent, but nothing. Then when we moved to town, there's something. Be said about a mortgage, it gets you up in the morning no matter what, like you're, you're you gotta go. So we, we moved to town, and I never really told Joe, but I'm like, we had three buildings, and we started in one, and I'm like, Oh, we could get to that building eventually, and maybe we'll add on and combine them. I've never really told Joe that because she wanted


    Mark D. Williams  30:22

    to like the buildings over here, like, well, if we keep expanding, we'll eventually connect the building. Yeah,


    Troy Eiden  30:31

    during the recession. So the recession, you know, everyone said it started in Oh, seven, but it really hit us the most in 11. Yeah, 1011 having to lay people off. So that really also because what was just, what was your size of company at that point, we were 26 that's still pretty big, though, yeah. And then when 2011 we had to do we went to half staff, and it was interesting. We went to insurance meeting. And there was about 30 companies throughout the US, woodshop companies, and no matter the size, they all went to, like half staff at that point, but at that point, when we had to leave, half the people go, I had one of my draftsmen just calling builders, and it took about a year, but he what we came up With was we're gonna call builders and tell them once, if you choose us, we can have a kitchen to you after the design papers are signed in three weeks, and all of a sudden, it just took off. So a year later, we went from 13 within a year, back up to 26 and then, but that really opened our eyes, or me, anyway, to we had this group of builders that we were kind of doing the same thing over and over with, and we lost a little bit of loyalty for a little while. So, you know, everyone was looking, where can they get a better price? Understood, because everyone was so competitive. But then we just started advertising and calling and calling and calling to try to build a clientele, and there's good and bad at that, so you get more people to work for, but what happens when they all call it same time? So so there's, there's that side of it, and that's why we've expanded, because we called more people, and I wanted to have, I wanted to have it spread out more. So again, the bad side is, if 20 builders call all at the same time, and you want to retain them, you better figure out how to get it done. So that's kind of the short, long of it. I think so.


    Mark D. Williams  32:34

    So in other words, that's me is organic growth.


    Troy Eiden  32:36

    I mean, you kind of did it because this, this drafter was just calling people, so now you have an outside salesperson that was just calling, calling, calling, calling, what? How did you so? And one other important step in that was we decided to hire a designer, and that made a huge difference with our win rates on jobs. Talk


    Mark D. Williams  32:56

    to me about that, because that's very unique. I've worked with probably only three cabinet shops, because I've worked with basically two internal ones for 20 years, 10 each. And then I worked down in Rochester with a cabinet shop, because we built one down there by the Mayo Clinic. And then I'll circle back to your shop down there, and why that's a huge emerging market. But what I've never seen before is having interior designers. You have three interior designers on your team. Tell me a little bit about that. That that


    Jo Eiden  33:20

    was one of the best decisions I think we made. Just the the draftsmen would kind of, they didn't, didn't do a bad job with it. That just wasn't their area of expertise. So they would do those client meetings, and they'd kind of come up with, you know, but they wouldn't go through like, Are you right handed or left handed? How do you use your kitchen? I mean, the designers asked all these, all those questions, then have them all scripted out. Now I bet, I think Amber has it all written


    Troy Eiden  33:43

    down, but I mean, they didn't go to school for that either, to be fair, no, right? That's what


    Jo Eiden  33:46

    I mean. They that wasn't their area that they were they were great at drafting and great at figuring out how the cabinet should be built, but that whole design piece was just especially as you get into those bigger houses and they want all those fancy bells and whistles and to have a designer alongside of them to help them make those decisions, and


    Mark D. Williams  34:03

    a traditional cabinet shop setup that would probably be the owners taking that role. So was that kind of a way to hand the baton on so that you your client, designs didn't have to be dependent on you being there.


    Troy Eiden  34:16

    I was thinking about this as you guys are talking. There were two like moments that I remember clearly as we were growing. One was, I'm gonna step back just a little bit. One was when we first bought the lumberyard buildings. They were three different buildings, and the one we were in was basically a yellow shed, and we had a high end client come out, and I heard her whisper, and I love her. She's great. But she whispered to her husband, I don't know if this place is good enough to do our work. Look just the image, right? And I'm like, holy crap, if we want to play in the arena with the people that like nice stuff and and, you know, like just quality stuff, we need to have. An image of that. So we we, as we added on, we changed the whole building look like. It's completely different. And then the second thing was, we had an open house, and there was a builder and and her and his wife was out, and she asked me, who designs the kitchens. And I said, Well, Brian, and Brian and then another male, and she's like, Oh, I'll never hire you, because a woman needs to design the kitchens. Now, if we'd flip that the other way of these times, right? We've, we've get ourselves in trouble. But that made me stop and think. And I'm like, holy cow. I'm like, you know this designer thing, I see how that could be a thing like, right? The meeting is going to be totally different. If a woman, woman or designer lady goes to another person's house theme, they might even sit down and have a cup of coffee or tea where a guy is just in there doing his thing, right? So those two moments were, like, kind of big moments that we actually spent a lot of money on after hearing those two comments.


    Mark D. Williams  36:02

    I mean, that's impressive. I think you know, the fact that you took the critique, the observation, yeah, we we listen, and then did something with it is really, really commendable and impressive. I think we're our next hire will be sort of like a there's an architect that we work with, and they have a, I forget what they call her. I want to call it a client liaison. But every time you communicate, she follows up with like, bullet points and like, it's just, I'm like, it's just really impressive. And, you know, I think our industry, other than technology, a huge, you know, surplus there. I think our industry could use a huge dose of hospitality. I've spoken about previously. I won't go into it long now, but my favorite book last year is a book called unreasonable hospitality, and it's all about the restaurant world. But, you know, we there's a lot of those customer service things that I think that we could adopt in our field. But to what you're speaking to, the interior designers are sure, doing it organically, not only based on the way they think and feel, but it is important, if the client reacts to it. It's really, really important. You know, my mom was an interior designer. My dad was the builder. And I, you know, years ago, asked him, What do you think made them you successful? And this is before I knew anything. I was just a little kid, and my dad said, he goes, your mom is the reason we sell so many homes. He goes, I can build anything, but your mom relates to people really well. And I think that spoke a little bit to that softer approach and being listened to and things like that, which you obviously tapped into with these, these designers. So that's impressive. What one of the questions I had, and just looking at your website and kind of doing some research about this, was what percentage of your cabinetry is straight to like B to B versus B to C? I


    Jo Eiden  37:38

    think that varies from year to year, but probably more recently, it has probably been closer 50, 5050, which is, I think some years they will be stronger builders to builders, and because then


    Mark D. Williams  37:48

    it would be really helpful to have the interior designer. Because a lot of builders like, like, like, for instance, if I do a job, we're always going to have a, you know, a designer, architect, a home designer, but we're also always going to have an interior designer as well on our side, if that is the case, and I come to you, does one of your designers still interact with our designers as well? They represent kind of the cabinet design side? Yeah,


    Troy Eiden  38:08

    okay. And the other reason is we want our engineer, we want the designers to get all the information and collect it, all the stain colors, the paint colors, the hardware, all that, all that stuff. We want our engineers to get it when it's all figured out, where they can just draw and send to the shop. So I kind of explain it this way. It's a little bit like a train now, like the designers need to do their part, and then it needs to go to engineering and they do their part, and then they send it to the shop, and it keeps moving. We've had people ask us if we'll do drawings for them. And I'm like, I can't do that because it interrupts our process, or our train or whatever. So then all of a sudden we have this gap. So, yeah, so it's like a blankie, correct? Yeah. It's like, this, this, this, and it needs to keep flowing. Yeah? No, I


    Mark D. Williams  38:57

    like that a lot. That actually makes a ton of sense. Yeah, how? One of the questions that I was thinking about, so you guys do finishing work in house as well. How much of the cabinetry that goes out is finished versus finished on site? Probably


    Jo Eiden  39:09

    95% of it's finished. Yeah, we really known for our finish. Exum, we called this just this morning, and she said, Oh, the finishing is just that's the reason I picked you guys. So that it's


    Mark D. Williams  39:20

    a huge factor in it. And this is, you are an expert. I am not. I've always been biased against pre finished cabinetry for myself as a high end custom home builder, and I can only think of the two reasons. One is like, you know, you know, I like we I'd say 95 actually, the home in Rochester was the only home that I've ever pre finished cabin John. And my bias was still confirmed, because I don't, I just very picky in terms of the crown molding. And so when the crown molding goes on last, and the way it's cocked, and the way I see those pinholes, even if they, you know, dab it with the paint, I guess, is that just me? Or yes, yeah, go ahead.


    Troy Eiden  39:55

    So what we tell people is, if the if that bugs you. So we do. All the cabinets pre finished. And then we prime the crown, put it all on, scuff, sand those joints, and then your painter can do at the tape line right there and paint that. And we've done that quite a bit too. When, when people are, you know, they'd like that crown, to be exact, because there's


    Mark D. Williams  40:16

    a lot of high end luxury home builders around that I know pre I know it's kind of a me thing, but you've heard, obviously, you've heard that from others as well. Yep, for sure. Yeah, interesting. And it's definitely more complicated, because now when you have your painters, and we have very talented painters, but even so, painting in a shop is obviously going to be better than painting the field. I'd be the first one to tell you that it's just


    Troy Eiden  40:37

    but the advantage is you gain on your schedule, because now your painters, all they have to do is paint the crown, so doing all sales pitch. No,


    Mark D. Williams  40:47

    well, no, it makes, it makes a ton of sense to me. No. I mean, the same argument. And part of it is, you know, here I'm talking about being forward thinking I'm pretty old school because, like, I feel the same way about wood floors, like I'm kind of biased against pre finished wood floors. I like the floors finished on site. That's just, I don't know. It's how I roll. I'm also very maybe it's because I'm a son of a builder who's a son of a builder. I just think like wood, wood, wood, wood, wood, wood, wood. But I 100% agree with you. I think if I was to be honest and ask my clients, most of them would not know unless I told them what my bias is. Yeah, I'd be interested to know how many people would actually say that, or, like, notice, you know what? I mean, yeah. And there's a cost difference too. We had one, and I don't know the exact number. I'll just I think on $120,000 $100,000 cabinet job, I think we saved a Delta of about 20,000 18,000 on that Rochester job by having it all pre painted, versus painting on site. So not only speed, but for that particular but there was a lot of one offs. I'd never used that painter before. I'd never used that cabinet shop before, so I don't know, compared to what I normally do, how that would work here locally, because you obviously still paid more. But their process the cabinet shop was like, we actually don't do it any other way, yeah. And so you don't give it


    Jo Eiden  42:00

    as an option. It wasn't even an option. We give it as an option, but it's rarely that's really rarely selected, yeah,


    Mark D. Williams  42:07

    well, especially if you're known for your finishes. Now, I really wanted to other shop for a variety of reasons, but I want to see it now. I want to all come out and see the


    Troy Eiden  42:15

    now, you got another shop that came to your job down to Rochester. It was, well,


    Mark D. Williams  42:19

    it's a lot closer. My office is here. So the client meeting is, why does the client meetings go down there? Well, let's talk about Rochester. What you know, obviously, for for those not in Minnesota, the Mayo Clinic in Rochester is the second largest city in Minnesota, behind Minneapolis, St Paul, and it's a huge market, especially a lot of transplants, a lot of doctors, a lot of people flying in for, you know, everything, it's kind of a booming place down there. Yeah, there's not as many, oh, I'm just not as familiar with as many builders down there. When we built our home, it was somebody that had toured all of our artisan homes and parade homes up here. And like, we love your style, we love your design. But was you build down here? It's like two hours away, and we figured it out it was more expensive because I talked to a few other builders that had done that. And if you bring all your people from, you know, most of my subs are Delano, Waconia, Elk River, and it's just like, Well, man, that's a two and a half hour drive one way. And so it ends up, you know, they have, you have to be compensated for that, yeah. So our cost was several 100,000 higher than when we we ended up partnering with a local builder and tapping into all their sub base there, and we were able to shave off, I don't know the exact number. It's called 200,000 Yeah, and that was, that was, I would love to do that again. I think it's a great market. And the biggest thing for me is less about the trade partners, because you can interview and find the ones that you really can gravitate towards, but project management, you know, for it to really because I can do the design. I mean, architects can design anything, anywhere, but project management is really where this stuff falls apart. And I've, for 20 years, have built these relationships with people that are so deep that I feel like I have, you know, 100 project managers. Because, you know, my plumber is a project manager, my electricity, they all care so much about what we're doing that I feel like I can sort of punch beyond my weight, because I've sort of empowered these people to have a voice. Yeah, let's talk about your decision to go to Rochester, and what have you found, and where are you going to go with this?


    Jo Eiden  44:10

    Well, our daughter and our son in law lived in Rochester, so then we were going down there quite a bit, and we're like, wow, this is a amazing community. And then we kind of just were like, Well, I wonder how many cabinet shops are even down here, there weren't that many, and there was not even one single showroom, cabinet showroom that people could go and meet at. So we're like, well, there's, there's something missing. New business,


    Mark D. Williams  44:30

    new business.


    Jo Eiden  44:33

    And then may I was doing their


    Mark D. Williams  44:34

    $2 billion edition, or whatever it is, and your project, or whatever they


    Jo Eiden  44:39

    got rolling out. So it just made sense. And


    Troy Eiden  44:41

    the population is supposed to, like, go from like 140 to like 240 by like 2040


    Jo Eiden  44:48

    Yeah, because it's almost double in size. So yeah. So hopefully it always takes time. You know, you don't just pop into a new market and everybody's going to trust you and know you and want to use you. So. It's been, it's been a process. So we were slowly earning their trust and doing some projects down there so people can see our work and see our quality and all that good stuff. So we definitely would, hopefully we'll get again.


    Mark D. Williams  45:11

    So you're, you have a showroom and two people that are kind of hosting it down there. There's


    Troy Eiden  45:16

    Jody that works in the showroom, and then Sam and and Jared, they do the installs down there. Okay,


    Mark D. Williams  45:22

    and you have enough work to keep the three of them busy, yep, wow, yep. And then, like you said, if it's dry, then bring them, yeah, yeah. Do they live down there? Then, I


    Troy Eiden  45:29

    assume in Owatonna, okay, yeah. So that's pretty close, yeah. And we had, we had a house on the spring tour, and we had one last year on the fall tour, I think, yeah,


    Mark D. Williams  45:39

    yep. We have a house that we could put in the tour, but it's over. A number of their tours are a little bit different down there than they appear. And so anyway, the clients have been in there for a year, and I just thought they've got a young family and to ask them to move out. Now, that's always a really hard part. When it's not a spec home or something like that, it makes it quite challenging. Yeah, walk. This is always I should know the difference between this and I think I do in my perception. But what is the difference between custom cabinets and box cabinets? Or are they or, I mean, the word custom implies so many different things, and there's so many biases around it, I think it's probably analogous to vinyl windows and wood windows. But that, do you think that's a fair analogy or not,


    Troy Eiden  46:20

    yeah. So, so the custom cabinet thing too. I I struggle with it too. When, even when we talk to different cabinet shop owners, they're like, oh, you know, we're really custom. Like, what


    Mark D. Williams  46:35

    does that mean? Yeah. Like, customer, not customer. You have a word in front of it that defines how custom you are. But, I


    Troy Eiden  46:42

    mean, I mean, I mean, some shops are, you know, they're gonna, they're gonna do a face frame cabinet with an overlay, and they want to keep the overlay the same. And some shops just, that's all they're gonna do. We, on the other hand, we let the designers, I'll just use the word, maybe push us around a little bit. And the architects are like, I want it like this, and this is how we're going to do it. And we usually say, Okay, we'll do that. Yeah. So we do a lot of face frame inset. We rarely do face frame overlay with the client base that we're doing stuff for. We do a lot of frameless stuff, and we do a lot of slab green matching, so and, and kind of anything in between. Someone comes with this concept, and we're like, yeah, we can do it with some success. And someone we're like, Oh, why do we agree to this so? But yeah, I guess on the custom side. Generally, most shops are using three quarter inch material or five ace. When you go to, like a box cabinet, generally, they're using like a three eighths inch sides for material, and they're using like an eighth inch back. And generally, on the custom shops, we're using three quarter or five ace, and we're using quarter inch backs, or with us hanger, or we're using a half inch back. The custom stuff is just usually more heavy and and the other big key difference is, I know the semi custom stuff, or whatever the box cam that's, they generally will do a pretty nice slide and a nice drawer box. But the hinges is usually where they fall a little short. They usually use those compact hinges. And generally the door is off the cabinet sticks off the cabinet face quite a bit, and the adjustment side of it is usually one screw, so it's not as, usually near as good of a hinge for the


    Mark D. Williams  48:40

    source, and especially over time. Yeah, I've often, you know, our cabin shop, we do, you know, mostly it's the maple drawers with dovetail, yep. And I just explained to a client, because I'm obviously selling it and like, oh, you know, look at this. And, you know, whether someone cares about that or not, it's more to the explanation part of the story. And not that we haven't done melamine boxes because they are easier to clean, obviously. But from us, from a standpoint of longevity, you know, especially if you do inset, which pretty much 95% of all our cabinets are going to be inset, yeah, you know, to your point, hardware is a big cost difference. And I remember during covid, it was like, because you guys were probably on allotments too, right? Yeah, so I don't know, I don't even know any other company, other than bloom, which I think is out of Austria. And it was funny, my cabinet shop actually his wife. I think his in laws actually lived in Austria, so they went there. And I joked, like, did you go to blums factory and get some and they're like, he's like, I he was, yeah, I've actually asked them to go. And they want, they only sell it through, you know, large distributors. I don't even know who they are, but the point was, everyone was on allotments, and you could only get what you had before. And we were joking that if you could, you know, you'd go over and with a couple suitcases and just load up on bloom hardware, because that was the limiting factor. Because then, when you had the boom in 2122 crazy you you could only produce the number of cabinets that you could put hardware on correct. And you that was a great. Chance to scale. But if you already weren't sort of big, good luck scaling when you can't get any of the materials.


    Troy Eiden  50:04

    So we, we, we did the Norwood thing and the Rochester thing while that was happening. So we actually were, you were always landing, so we were having lots of trouble. I told, we use bloom too. I told my Bender, I'm actually good friends with them, and I'm like, Dude, I need to get this stuff. Like, I know you're doing allocation, but we're growing, so that doesn't work. So at some point I got to try to find different hinges if you can't provide and that's not easy either, because on the other side, the other manufacturers, grass and silici, they're like, No, we're allocating to our customers first. So it was not fun.


    50:45

    Yeah,


    Mark D. Williams  50:47

    one of the things that I was thinking of in terms of, because you hear box cabinets as the ones that are not as custom, right? But I mean, you can still get them a different shape. So in some ways, it is custom. But when you go to, let's say, a Home Depot or pre manufactured lines, what would you say is the difference in terms of longevity? Like, what is the difference? Why should someone invest in custom cabinets?


    Troy Eiden  51:08

    So probably the biggest reason is the custom cabinet guys are going to build it to the exact space right to the quarter inch or eighth of an inch. So no fillers, no fillers, correct. And structurally, people should talk to the granite guys, because the some of the really thin sides on the cabinets eventually, once the granites in there, it'll settle. Actually, it won't support that granite over a longevity. So wouldn't be a big deal if you put granite against the wall and it's against sheetrock, but if you tile to the granite and all of a sudden stuff is shrinking, pretty soon, you got gaps going on and, Oh, that's


    Mark D. Williams  51:46

    interesting. I've never heard that one as a line of thinking. I mean, because I've always, ever had custom I guess it's never been something that's ever come up on a personal home, yep. So interesting from a longevity standpoint. I mean, what can you expect the lifespan of a custom cabinet to be, versus, let's say a box cabinet. I know it's super dependent on how it's used, but let's just say you have a young family. You know, giving it the young kids are pretty much the worst on everything. So let's just take a young family of five, and they've got three kids if they're going to live in their house for let's just say 20 years, done, done with high school. Versus, let's say a custom home. Sorry, a custom cabinet home. This is a tough question, but do your best with it. Like, are you gonna have to replace those box cabinets? Are they gonna break down? Like, what's gonna happen? Or is it longer than that?


    Troy Eiden  52:35

    You're gonna have a hardware failure, probably more than anything on the box cabinets. Over time, the custom cabinets, I would, I would ask the question too, if it's a stained product, right, and you ding it up a little bit, it's usually doesn't look too bad. But if it's stark white, and you get those same dings on the same cabinets, but stark white, people don't like that. Well, I


    Mark D. Williams  52:59

    mean, I got that little sauce. I mean, I've got, like, the butter knife thing happening on my bread knife on it's always the trash door, yeah, the dishwasher door and the refrigerator door in the sink. It's wherever there's water, yep, you know. And then trash is the especially with the inset. I mean, you know, I mean it just, you're constantly loading it. And, I mean, actually, now that you think my wife's out of town this week for she went to the US Open with her sister in laws. I meant to, I meant to surprise her and have the painter come over and paint the edges, because they need to be painted again. Nothing. The other thing is, nothing is without maintenance. You know, I think, I think to educating people in general. I think I feel like the older generation is much better at understanding this. I was just chatting with someone recently, but, you know, my generation and younger, I mean, the idea that they, I've been in homes before, where they're like, Oh, my AC froze up, and we're like, like, and I'm, trust me, I'm not the handy one. I'll like, go downstairs. I'm like, Well, let's look at your filter and like, Oh, we didn't even know that was there. I'm like, Oh my word. And it's just, you can imagine what it looks like. And you're like, Oh my word. And so it's like, what is the future without, I mean, without full time service? I mean, what one of my biggest concerns is these, these homes that we build. I mean, they've gotten tighter and tighter, and I think that's, I mean, that's not like we're going to undo that genie, that's, that's going to be how it goes. But, you know, energy efficiency and all this stuff, but it all falls apart if you don't, you know, maintain it, yeah,


    Troy Eiden  54:15

    yeah.


    Jo Eiden  54:15

    I love your and analogy about the if, because people see, are the, are the cabinets gonna get scratched. Are they gonna get dinged? Well, you try to say, Well, if you take a knife and you go and scrape it, scratch it on your car, your car is go to scratch, or it's gonna


    Troy Eiden  54:28

    I actually don't say that to the customers, but I want to you say it


    Jo Eiden  54:32

    to me, and I'd like that is such a great analogy, though, because if you don't, if you run your kid runs into your cabinet, it's probably gonna


    Mark D. Williams  54:40

    ding. About love, about cabinetry is you use it, yeah, I think, you know, I think back to when my dad built homes for 30 years in mine, we used to do this with this word. Think of like a word search. I don't know the right word, but like, the more clients you we give them a list of like 20 words, and the more a client voted on the word, the bigger it got. And so we used to give it to. As a survey at the end, and cabinetry trim. And then people, a couple people's names, like my trimmer, my cabinet guy, like, maybe it's also because on a custom home, they spend the most time. Like your cabinet shop, you spend a lot of time designing it, and especially with ours, you know, it would be the owner talking to so they get really familiar with them. I mean, cabinets, cabinetry is so suited to a specific lifestyle. Right handed, left handed, as you already mentioned, height, I'm being six two. I'm always saying, Hey, can we get these countertops at 38 inches, versus 36 which would be, you know, our standard here, anyway, and anyway, the point is, it's so interactive, and so they I feel like cabinetry more so than a lot of the other trades. They get really, you guys get close. I would say that cabinetry and trim, and maybe, just because, from a trimming standpoint, they spend so much time in their home trimming, and they get to see them, and they see visually what, like, I we had Randy Janelle on from Minnesota, custom drywall, and I was laughing. I'm like, drywall is, like, pretty low on the totem pole. I'm like, nobody walks through and is like, oh, man, you got a kill or drywall job. Like, who is your drywall guy? He's incredible. No, but cabinets, it happens all the time. I think it's one of the most celebrated pieces of a home. I think windows are up there, cabinetry and tile work. Probably tile works up there too. But I think cabinetry more than anything else, because you touch it the most, you use it the most, and visually it changes the space the most, in my opinion,


    Troy Eiden  56:21

    yeah, would you Yeah, totally agree with that, and like, beams and stuff like that throughout the house, like the millwork side of it, you're right, yeah, yeah, yeah. We definitely,


    Jo Eiden  56:30

    really get to know because it is. It's a long process, especially at the bigger, bigger houses, there's so many decisions that are made. You're contacting them so much because you're going back and forth with colors or with, you know, different styles. And it we, the relationship is we. It's so fun to watch what amber or the other designers do. They'll hug, they'll come up and they'll hug her, and they'll be like, Come here, come in. You got to see because sometimes they don't go back until it's all, you know at the end, and we're delivering a gift or something, and they'll be like, Amber, Amber. Come in, come in and see it turned out so great. And sometimes they're gonna be crying because they're so happy with how it turned out and and they know how much effort we put into it, all of it too. And they just are so appreciative. It's so awesome.


    Mark D. Williams  57:11

    I think. Well, I mentioned this before. As we close up, I want to hear a good fail story, if you have any that come to mind, and I'll just, I'll just prep it with what could have been a fail story. Give you some time to think we when we built our most complicated contemporary home, actually the home you came through so that home that you came through all that wood, I think I mentioned to you in the bathroom, it was all olive wood, avid Dory fiddle back. All this wood was from Africa, and it was the height of covid, and I think it took, like, 16 months to get this stuff, or whatever it was, forever. And the home and the cabinet shop was a smaller cabinet shop, you know, 810, people. But he said he was so worried, because everything was bookend matched, and it was just beautifully grain matched. And he's like, if anything got cut wrong, I mean, you throw out that whole kitchen, it's Gonzo. And he so he he did all himself. He was just paranoid. And he said, If I ever do a home like that again, a I'm taking out an insurance policy specifically for a job like, I never thought about that. And he, I think he was dead serious. He's like, you know, I don't remember, let's just call it a $300,000 I don't know what it was, a huge one. And the point was, he's, like, a job like that could put you out of business if it went wrong, because if you have to replace all of it, yeah, I mean, it's no joke. And, you know, he was not saying that tongue in cheek. He was dead serious. And I remember the homeowner, who was amazing fan. I think you maybe met him. He was just an incredible guy. Incredible guy, and he had such an affinity for all of our trades and loved them all. But he used to always kind of say, What's taking so long? Like, the wood I was like, I used to joke with darker like, is there no wood in North America? Like, is all the wood in Africa? Like, that's why it's taking so long. And on top of covid, a top of bloom. And by the way, only the owner of the company is, well, anyway, why? It's not quite a fail story, but, like, the fail story would have been if, like, we had wrecked those cabinets, and everyone was pretty paranoid, because we do a great job. We do an amazing job of trying to protect stuff. But stuff happens. Yeah, you know, guys, you know, doing a light fixture falls off a ladder, yep. How you gonna stop that gravity? Good luck. You know, you rub up. I've seen it before where we had a guy doing a paint touch up over a window, and it was to fix the window, and he went away, and his tape measure on his hip. He had reached up. He wasn't quite tall enough, and his tape measure went and rubbed against the window and scratched the millwork on the window like, oh man, you can't make this stuff up anyway. What are some good everyone loves a good fail story. You guys got some good stories of things that have gone wrong.


    Jo Eiden  59:24

    Well, when he talks about that with the I just think of that dumb job we do with Tara. Yeah. Is that the one that came to mind? Yeah, because it's something did happen, the fire or the water sprinklers went off. Oh no. And we had just, we're pretty much done in we


    Troy Eiden  59:37

    had about three days worth, maybe two days worth of install of all the cabinets, and a sprinkler head got hit and it was spraying water out. It took like eight minutes, 10 minutes till the guy had turned off. And in my head, I'm like, we're going to be doing all this over again. And it was kind of the same deal. We ordered all the veneer from a company that. Laid it all up in Indiana from one tree log. So it was all book match,


    1:00:04

    oh yeah.


    Troy Eiden  1:00:05

    So I was just like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh. And they brought in a company we wiped up all the water. They brought in a company that tested the moisture. They tested it three times, and it passed. So we had to take a few things out and do a few things, but all the cavity was


    Mark D. Williams  1:00:24

    saved well. But think about this. It was all pre sealed, wasn't it? It was pre finished. So think, imagine, imagine one of my homes, and the other


    Troy Eiden  1:00:33

    part of it was, it was in, was that November, I think all that stuff, because of the stairwell had to be craned up on the top of the building. That was all going through my head. I'm like, I happen to be at the job site installing I helped on that third


    Jo Eiden  1:00:49

    level. Oh my gosh. They had to go in through a window. The cabinets wouldn't fit up the stair, the staircase, because


    Troy Eiden  1:00:56

    they wanted it all built with the tall whatever so I think, no,


    Mark D. Williams  1:01:01

    I want them. I have this idea, this concept, that's like another, it didn't quite fail, but it got close to failing. Yeah, I would love to do a, like, a podcast panel, or even just like, Have everyone video. Like this concept of like, losers are winners. Like, you know, this idea that, you know, what we put out there, in terms of marketing is a polished gem that's marketing our best like, but that's like, we have a lot of pretty bad days, right? And I'm not saying that we should celebrate all, but like all of it's real. And one of my favorite quotes is, don't judge me what I do on my best day. Don't judge me what I do on my worst day. Judge me on what I do consistently in between. And I've always really liked that. And you know, because there aren't days, you know, they're having a bad day. You give them a pass. I mean, honestly, it's analogous to, like, marriage or kids or all of it, because it's all kind of the same in terms of just having patience with each other. But I think I would love to sort of celebrate the failures that lead to successes, because I think that's what separates business owners that continue to scale. I mean, I'm still kind of enamored with the scaling operation. I feel like I've done a poor job of getting to like how you've done all this, because I want to do like another part where you just, like, go step by step, year by year, and you'd almost have to write it down, because I'm guessing, well, you might have a plan to scale. A lot of it happens. It just happens as you're reacting in the moment like you, you saw opportunity in Rochester. It wasn't a grand plan. You just like, hey, there's opportunity here. There's no showrooms down here. Let's start a showroom right.


    Troy Eiden  1:02:23

    The other part of what you're saying is not everything works perfect. So how do you, if you come to a problem area, how do you how do you deal with it, and how do you resolve it? Like the I feel like the good companies, if they do take up however you want to call a step backwards on something. How do they resolve that? And the good ones are good at making it right, and the bad ones are not good at making it right. Well, I


    Mark D. Williams  1:02:49

    would, I don't know how to this is the worst word in the world, not the worst word in the world. It's not the most articulate thing in the world, but the figure it out factor. Like, if I was to hire somebody, and like, if you had to, like, check off, like, the things that they have, like, over all other things, other than maybe a positive attitude, because I do really like positive people, it would probably be the figure it out factor, yeah, because if I have that, I can do what you just said, yeah, we can figure it out. Yeah. And, and you look at, you know, building is messy. I mean, I often tell my clients that, you know, you know, Ford f1 50 rolls off, what, 100,000 trucks a year, and in a in the same pieces on every single one by robots in a factory, and they have callbacks on them. We're building a one of a kind house outside in the elements with human hands over the course of a year or more. It's amazing. We get as much right as we do. Yeah, and, well, it's and you need the collection of the team, people like yourselves, everyone on the team, to say, how can we, how can we do this together? Yeah, in a way that the clients are happy. And it's kind of a, I'm just kind of enamored. I mean, why I love building is because you get all of these talented, passionate people with their specific crafts, you know, and and get them all together so that you can create a home for somebody. Yeah?


    Jo Eiden  1:04:05

    Amazing thing that it all comes together. Yeah? Sometimes when you're at the job set a couple weeks before the closing, though, you're like, how's this all going to come together? And somehow it does. When


    Troy Eiden  1:04:14

    there's 30 subs in the house, they're working on top,


    Mark D. Williams  1:04:18

    you're gonna like this. So I we just actually were coming up on our first home where I've done this. So I shout out to Brad Levitt and aft construction down in Arizona, but he kind of talked about this at a seminar I was at where, you know, you just described the chaos of the last 30 days, and everyone knows what I'm talking about. You're nodding your head right now, Troy, because we all know and laugh like you


    Troy Eiden  1:04:41

    want to show up first so you get a good parking spot.


    Mark D. Williams  1:04:46

    You're worried about your parking lot. I'm worried about getting the client in the home. Well, we just, we just, it all starts in the beginning, because it takes about a year for us to change things right, our contracts and also the message that I'm delivering to my client. So we were coming up now. The end where we're definitely going to be done, probably in about three weeks, but the client cannot move in till October 12, 30 days after we're quote, done. And I'm not the only one that does this, but I don't know why it took me so long to adopt this, because it makes way better sense. Like a flying you know, building an airplane while you build it is a terrible idea, but the majority of builders know what I'm talking about. But the second part of this is like, why do we keep moving our clients in before the House is done? It makes no sense. And what happens is, with the punch list, you know, this 30 day Crusher


    Troy Eiden  1:05:31

    never quits. It


    Mark D. Williams  1:05:32

    never quits, and it takes it. I don't know that. It takes 10,000% longer to do it after when they're moved into the house than if you do it ahead of the house. And we had one last year where she moved in, I would say early. She said, You know, this is the time you told me. So whose fault that is? That's probably us for not delivering this message ahead of time. And we had our normal punch list, but between their travel schedule, their kids schedule, it took us eight months to get the 30 day punch list done. So now we're gonna do the punch list when the house is done, and then guess what? We get 30 days to actually do what's on the punch list. So when you move in, there's nothing, anything that goes on that list. Then is a one year callback. We're not doing anything till one year after that. I'm excited to see how it goes. But it only worked because I sold it on the front end of the client, so they knew the expectation, because there obviously is a temptation, and we'll see how it goes. I mean, knock on wood here in three weeks, when they drive by the house and be like, hey, the house is done. We're lucky on this one, because it has a detached garage that we had the lot of super narrow so we had to build the garage last. And so they see the garage is catching up to the main house. So they'll because you can imagine if, like, the sod is in and everything else is done. They're like, Well, why can't we move in? You're like, well, because of this new thing I'm trying out.


    Jo Eiden  1:06:47

    We talk about that all the time. We have to educate and we have to educate them, because if we if we don't tell them, and then they're mad, that's on us, because we didn't tell them, but if we've told them three or four times that, you know, we have to be able to pull our vehicles up so we can get those big, huge, heavy cabinets into the house. We can't park two blocks down the road. We have to be able to back


    Mark D. Williams  1:07:04

    up to the house the best parking now that you mentioned, it's always like right next to the front door. I mean, it makes sense. It's the heaviest things, yeah, but


    Jo Eiden  1:07:13

    if we didn't tell them that, and they don't know, then that's on us. But if we told them that when we come and we don't want you or your pets or your children. We this. These cabinets are super heavy, and it's difficult to get them in, and we're trying to go upstairs sometimes with them. We gotta let them know our rules in advance, and that's been huge for us. That's been helping the time. So love


    Troy Eiden  1:07:33

    it. Yeah.


    Mark D. Williams  1:07:34

    Thank you very much for your time and for coming in. And I'll stop out and check out the space here. I want to see, I want to see this building, you know, this five remodels, what this looks like. So I don't want to see the pictures of the old yellow shad where the lady said, is, like, that's ugly. I might


    Troy Eiden  1:07:48

    even had a mullet


    Mark D. Williams  1:07:54

    back. I mean, if we had an unlimited budget, I would do Troy, you know, Troy mullets, you know, like, instead of hats, that would actually be a hat idea, all right. Well, we'll have everything. Yeah, you're welcome. Thanks again for supporting the kids charity and for coming on, telling your story, and we'll have all your contacts information in the show notes. If anyone wants to reach out, they can. And thanks again for coming on. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for listening to the curious builder podcast today, one of the things that you can do if you appreciate the content that the show is producing, if you appreciate the guests that we're bringing on, is to help support us. Some of our sponsors obviously have done that throughout the years, and we're very thankful for that. But many of you listeners out there have asked what you can do. Well, other than telling your friends about it and sharing it on your own channels, you can also head to our merch pays and help support us through buying some of the merchandising. We have shirts available. We have notebooks and we have hats now available. All these companies are small boutique companies that we partner with that we believe in. So not only are you helping the cures builder podcast, you're also helping some more small business. One of those companies, of course, is Harnish. I've spoken about them on the podcast before. I'm wearing one of the shirts right now. It is the softest and most durable shirt you can possibly buy. I call it the softest armor you can have on your body. It's pretty amazing. Their stuff, Hive notebooks, been using those now for a couple years, and they have stone notepaper, which is actually pretty cool. It's waterproof. It's tear proof. So if you've got a notebook out in the field, or if you just want a really cool notebook, I'd highly recommend getting one of those. We hand those out to our collectives as well. So if you're in our collective, you've already gotten one. And then lastly, our hats. The hat, actually, we partnered with a local company in Colorado called BOGO. And what's really cool about them is they are sweat resistant. I wear them for ultra running keep the sun on my eyes. But it's also just a really, really cool looking hat. It's got an amazing multi color plaid bill on it. So again, these are things that you can do to support the podcast, as well as getting some cool merch out of the deal. So head to our merch page on the cures builder podcast.com. Thanks for listening to the cures builder podcast. If you like what you listen to, please give us a five star rating and write us a review. It really means a lot. It's a great way for us to. Just understand what you like about the podcast and what we can keep doing so like and review and please share with your friends and family. Find out more at curious builder podcast.com you.

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Episode 82 - Scaling Your Business Without Losing Culture: Insights from Kate O'Hara