Episode 26- Ryan Lipchek of CBUSA

Connecting Builders: How CBUSA Creates Win-Win Partnerships for Contractors and Suppliers

Ryan Lipchek visits Minneapolis to discuss bringing CBUSA to the local market. He shares how the purchasing group model benefits both builders and suppliers through increased buying power and access to new customers. Lipchek also explains CBUSA’s process for launching in a new city and developing critical mass among contractors.

Listen to the full episode:

About Ryan Lipchek

Ryan is currently VP of Sales at CBUSA, and a Homebuilder Purchasing Consultant and Homebuilding Industry Speaker. Not only does he possess an understanding of the building industry, as a member of CBUSA, Ryan and the CBUSA team strive to connect smaller scale and independent home builders and suppliers to help scale their companies and reach their maximum profit potential. Ryan attended Grove City College, and achieved a BA in Business-Communications. He utilizes his background in sales and marketing and applies these strategies to the building companies he works with today.

He helps to inspire and encourage the building community to continue towards a better future of builders.

Resources

• CBUSA on Ryan Lipchek

• Check out Ryan Lipchek on Linkedin

• Transcript

  Don't just try to solve people's problems until you understand what they are. And I think no matter what you're selling, no matter what you're building, no matter what you're doing, take the time to understand your person. Listen to them, find out what their needs are, and then seek to address those needs

  Welcome to the curious builder Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host. Today I'm joined with Ryan lipstick from CB USA. Welcome, Ryan.

  Hey, Mark. Thanks for having me.

  So where do you fly into from today?

  Cleveland to Chicago to Minneapolis was the route.

  Wow. I'm glad he landed in the best state Minnesota. best state in the country?

  It sure is. It's been a great experience. So far. The lunch meeting we just had was fantastic. Yeah,

  I thought be a little different. Maybe we'll start there. We'll talk obviously, so that people can get educated about CB USA for just a few minutes first, and then we'll dive into that. So why don't we give our audience a lot of them here locally might not know who you are. But across the country, CB us EU CB USA is a pretty household name. Just give a little intro of who you are about you personally, and then a little bit about what you do.

  Thank you. Thanks for having me. So 20 years ago, CB USA was started in Northern Virginia DC with a bunch of forward thinking builders and say, Hey, why don't we do something different? Why don't we all come together? Why don't we work on things together, get better pricing, better quality, better service? And they did they found that it worked. And they were they were forward thinking enough to realize that, you know, you can't just have that lone wolf mentality, like a lot of builders have the high tide raises all ships, let's work together like they do in other industries. But you know, in our industry, we're kind of more more everybody's fixed to themselves

  kind of archaic that way. I think the new generation is definitely changing that I think super networking groups, you know, builder, 20s contractor coalition's locally, you know, I think that's really eye opening. But

  we talked about that in our meeting today that came up. Yeah, the new generations, definitely less archaic. But over the last 20 years, he was a group from one market there in Northern Virginia to 36 markets around the United States of 750 Builders and 1300 vendors and 25 National manufacturer partners, and you know, all that together with a fifth biggest builder in the United States, and we help builders all around the country get more profitable. So we're excited to be here.

  I mean, that's super cool. So you basically go into a market, you know, let's just take Minneapolis, Minnesota, which we don't currently have a CB, USA. And by the time this airs, hopefully we will, but essentially, you put together anywhere from 15 to 30 builders, and collectively the buying power of that group then elevates their buying power. So they can in some ways buy and purchase and strengthen relationships like a national builder would

  well said That's exactly it. Yes. And it's builders like you that get us started. And all these markets, we meet somebody that's fantastic at what they do that's connected to people. And they introduce us to other builders and say, Hey, we got to bring CB USA to Scottsdale with with with rad calm and Brad love it or to, you know, Austin, Texas, or Cleveland, Ohio or whatever. And just, we're going to be in Minnesota because of, you know, your your connections here and your ability to get us into a meeting like we had today. And then the message kind of takes care of itself. Because it's real. There's no smoke and mirrors. It's a good program. And if we get great builders together with great vendors, there's a lot of savings and a lot of great things happen for everybody.

  Let's go back to the beginning before we talk about even today, because I think all these things are going to be helpful. But going back to the beginning, talk to us a little bit about that first group and why they were I think they're being kind of run out by the National builders in the DC area. Is that right?

  Yeah, whole DC, northern Virginia area, you know, that was dominated by some of the biggest builders in the country.

  And so they just couldn't compete on price wise, it starts with

  land, they gobble up a bunch of land at good prices, and then all of a sudden, there's not enough land left for the smaller guys. That's kind of where it starts. But then better pricing, all that stuff, which means that their end product can be sold to the consumer at a much lower, much less price where us as customers and independent builders don't have that leverage, don't have the footprint don't have the volume don't have all that. So they were established. What if we gave ourselves that? Why do you give yourself that you've got to team up with other builders in order to achieve that. And they did. And now it's now it's become, we've got better at it every single time we've done it

  because they've done that they did that for I believe you said 94 to about 2004. And then the original founder essentially said, Hey, we're onto something pretty amazing here. He stopped building and then he basically started which is franchising. Like what do you how do you describe kind of the expansion of CBD USA across the United States?

  There's a guy named Bill Smithers that was our CEO and founder and he's University homes in Northern Virginia. And he, his partner continued to run that but he stepped away because so many people started asking him, how are you guys doing this that first 10 years that they were doing it before CBSA was even founded? What are you guys doing there? We want to do it through Go to 20 clubs around nhB and all that. So he said, Okay, well, you have to, there's a lot to it, you have to build trust, you have to get the right builders, you have to do this, this and this, like, I can't just tell you how to do in a phone conversation. There's more to it than that, right? I need to teach it. So that's when this idea of CBSA was born. And I said, Okay, well, we could do it in Northern Virginia. Let's go do it in Houston. And let's go do it all over the place. And it's really been a eye opening experience to see what Builders pay for things and how they were able to compete with the bigger builders by doing it by working together.

  Out of curiosity, what does the CB stand for

  us to stand for custom builders USA, okay. But now we kind of dropped the custom builders part of it, we just have the CBSA because we're not just for custom builders refer. We have builders anywhere in our network doing, you know, a few homes a year at, you know, great, huge price points, like you build a big point like Brad letter builds. And you know, like today in our meeting, there was a couple guys that built $40 million homes out to builders doing three or 400 homes on a much lower price point. Right. So we figured custom builders didn't really apply anymore, because people and we don't want people to think is just for custom build.

  Yeah, that makes sense. And I think you described it well, in the sense that I was thinking, I guess of an ecosystem, like an ocean, like you need small fish, medium fish and big fish? And is that really a equivalent analogy for the sense that like, you need small, medium, large, and it's really that mixture of builders that represents a good foundation for a group?

  Exactly, yeah, because they all bring different things to the table, especially when it comes to purchasing, you know, certain guys are buying the big, huge, crazy, top of the line faucets and fixtures and all that stuff. And other guys are buying more volume of those lesser expensive. So the bread, the product is really interesting to manufacturers. And that's what the different builders sitting around the table and every market really, really represents to us. So you know, and they all have different ideas, too. They run their business differently. So when you're talking about a think tank of great builders getting together, and bouncing ideas off each other, and high tide raises all ships, like we talked about today, everybody gets better. Well, everybody brings different things to the table. And that's, that's one of the cool parts about it, everybody brings their thing and everybody gets better. And as you know, the eye opening, because you see the guy that builds a couple of homes a year. Sometimes it's better at certain parts of his business than the guy that's building a whole bunch of homes a year and they feed off each other.

  Yeah, I mean, it seems like there's a lot that goes into it. There's obviously your, your your vendor relationships, if you will, obviously, networking is a huge part of it. And then really, I guess the other side of it is the vendor, what is the vendor get out of it? I think a lot of people when they hear this program, at first, they think, Well, this sounds really great for me. But we have you know, every builder would pretty much pride themselves on great long standing relationships. And I know your relationship based company, because you've said before that you guys don't do a lot of advertising, everything is based on referral, well, you can't have a referral based network if you're not into networking, and really treating both sides of the equation properly. So talk a little bit about how this how the vendors and I keep saying sponsors, but it's really the vendors and your trade partners also benefit from this group of builders in each market.

  That's great for when it starts with the builders whenever we start a new market, but we realize and you know this better than anybody, mark that you can't build a house without great vendors, suppliers, giving you the material without great subcontractors and trades doing it. And you're loyal to a lot of those people and we get that. So we've we learned that program that's really all about the builders and not good for the other important part of our of our industry is not going to be very long lasting, it's going to be short lived. It's got to be good for everybody. So how do you make something good for everybody, you got to have a good for the builders good for the vendors. So when the vendors join our group, they have great unparalleled access to that whole build a group of you know, 20 3040, builders, whatever in a market, they can get to them, they can sell them new products, they can teach them new things, they can build that brand loyalty, and it's great builders that are going to pay them on time that's usually vendors in our group that are guaranteed to get paid on time from the best builders and they're gonna go make money on their job. This is what we always talk about our builders run a great a great business we're owned by builder trend out of Omaha, Nebraska, the software company. So you use that you know your your user of builder trend your your love builder trend. And the reason is because makes you more efficient lets you be a better business owner because you're running a great business. It's great for your homeowners because the job gets done faster. It gets done on budget, you're able to do all the different things because you use that construction management software,

  which I think as the project is get more and more complicated. You know, we use builder trend, and it's amazing that it's able to take kind of this big spider web of information and consolidate in a single point. so that not only can we manage it and use it, our clients can, but obviously our trade partners and vendors as well,

  exactly everybody, everybody wins when you're communicating. And when you're communicating together, the products get distributed on time, and you can allocate for that. And then you know, at the end of the day, you have a job that's running smoothly, and the vendor can come and make money on your job, because he knows the material is going to be there, you're going to have the other half the house to themselves, they're going to be able to get in and out make their money. And that's, you know, we were talking today about labor. I mean, labor is tough, like it was hard to get. There's only so many people what was just what you said today, it was like for every seven.

  Yeah, I think recently had someone on it was like for every, you know, six or seven master certified plumbers that are retiring or leaving the field, there's only one journeyman to take their place. And that's similar across the board for electricians, as well as h fac. And I guess where I was going with this is that we're definitely going to we already are in a labor pinch. I think you guys, you know, over the last couple of years, I think COVID taught us a lot about, you know, allocation, and you know, supply chain issues, no matter what industry you're in building wasn't unique in that, but it really it really highlighted where we were weak. And I think one of the things that you highlighted that with by being the fifth largest builder collectively of I think you said there's 750 builders in the group, roughly cvusd Yep. And so now if you're the fifth largest builder, and you go to James Hardy and say, Hey, I'm missing, you know, two squares, a siding, if your fifth best customer in the entire United States is asking for a product, you're probably going to get to him pretty quick. Is that

  accurate? That is very true. A lot of good things happen from it. And, you know, we do 15,000 homes and $10 billion in annual revenue, which puts us as the fifth best base builder in the country. So a lot of our manufacturers were one of their top couple biggest accounts nationwide, which is cool, because you put you put builders that normally don't have a direct line, like to the CEO of a big company, or the you know, the top people at a big huge manufacturer, but but now you do. So if anything, you know, if you need them, you put yourself on the radar. So there's savings, there's networking, there's all that stuff that comes just like and that's another great value, too.

  Right? Well, it's interesting, because I think a lot of times people are excited about the bottom line or the sale. But it's really, it's so much more than that. I mean, it's Yeah, I guess we already highlighted some of those huge benefits. Walk us through a little bit because I know a lot of people are interested in understanding like how CB USA comes to a market. And it all sounds good. But how do you manage existing relationships because I know like lumber, lumber yards are usually a big one, you know, let's just say you're building a million dollar house, your package in our market is probably around 150 200,000. So that's 20% of the overall package is coming from the lumberyard. And they, you know, they might maybe more maybe 300,000 If you factor in Windows, you know, siding, trim hardware doors, and a lot of people have multi decade long relationships with these, with these partners. Walk us a little bit about how you navigate that, so that both parties feel good about essentially going in the next evolution of what you're building is going.

  It's not easy. I mean, that's it, this is definitely a relationship driven business. And a lot of times builder feel like lumber supplier, for example, that sales rep is kind of an extension of their company, and they've always gone through it for a generation to generation five, you know, five year, whatever it's been, and some of that stuff, you know, you just have to work through and you know, we get great builders, and then we, when we enter a market, we get great builders, that's where it starts. And then we surround them with the vendors that they tell us that they already use. Nobody knows the market better than those builders better than you in Minneapolis. So who you tell us in all the key phases of construction, who are the best vendors, we go talk to them, we bring them on as vendor partners. And we talked to them about, hey, we want you to be a part of this. And it's going to be good for you and good for the builder and manage those those things. And you know, sometimes they're a little apprehensive at the beginning. But they realize that if they embrace this concept and come in, they can get a more business, they can get a more, you know, all the different things that we talked about. So it ends up being good. I was

  explaining it to someone after our meeting today was, you know, let's just say we'll pick ABC, actually, that is a real company. So let's, let's go XYZ Lumber Company. And so XYZ lumber company, let's say they represent five of the builders in a group of 20. And what's in it for them? Yes, their their overall margin or of their overall profitability might be less per stick? Maybe, maybe not. We'll get to that in a minute, because now they're being essential, but they're now also getting access to 15 builders that they don't currently represent. So, yes, they might, they might. They're gonna make it up in the aggregate right? Because now you have 15 or 20 people in this example that are not going to buy from that lumber company for over the next six months or a year or however long they've locked in prices. So they actually just gain 10 customers, it's not like they lost five, but they gained 10 Is that accurate?

  Look at you, you're like a purchasing group group group. Now,

  I've heard this twice in the last two hours. Turns out if you hear things multiple times, it really sets in,

  but it does, right, that's what's in it for them more business from the best builders, they're gonna pay them on time, and also an opportunity to potentially go be a better buyer, that's a big, that's a big thing they can go, you know, when we, when we look over the headlights, and we tell them, here's what we're gonna buy as a building group in this particular market over the next two months, three months, six months, they can go procure that they can take a position on it, but which is better than they can usually do. Because before you know, other than what CBSA does, they're kind of out, just seeing what every builders doing trying to trying to get a bead on what's common, where if we actually tell them in a very organized way through our software to Here's what's coming, go go take a position on this amount of lumber, they love it, because then they could go by so maybe to your point, maybe they're losing a little bit of profitability, but usually it's not too much because they can go by better, right, which then pass that savings down to our builders, and then we can all all win together.

  Right. I like that. I also think that's really unique in the sense that they, you know, they're playing the market, if you will, but a small builder like I am, you know, we build four to five high end homes a year and a handful of remodels. You know, obviously, I'm designing with my clients I'm, you know, working on, it's sometimes hard to predict how many homes that I'm going to do. I'm not a model home builder, I think of, you know, a small mini regional builder that's maybe doing 100 homes, I mean, they know they're, they're doing 12 starts a month, I mean, they've got a pretty regular cadence. And well, my might move the needle a little bit bigger at one time, because it might be a much larger project, I can't always predict when they're gonna fall in, you had mentioned something that I thought that was interesting, that brings clarity, because usually we'll get a quarterly call from our sales rep, like, hey, what's coming up this year, they're just trying to kind of see, I'm sure they have a little tally sheet that's kind of telling a of my 20 builders, you know, Mark is thinking he's got two to three, maybe this fall, it's not 100%, but allows them to get some sort of accurate indicator of the future with your system, I believe you're checking in with us once a month as a group, and we're reporting where our sales are at so that you can now go back to the lumberyards and say, Hey, with this group, you've got 300 starts in the next six months, and now they can take super aggressive money making positions that ultimately will maybe will will yield them more money, I would assume if they're smart,

  exactly, you summed it up. And yeah, because things are always changing in our industry, too. So like, the communication aspect is huge. So like, just because you tell us, Hey, Ryan, I'm gonna have my next lumber purchase is going to be in whatever it's gonna be in September, and then I'm gonna have another one in November or whatever, then could change municipalities permits financing. So, you know, it goes back to just communicating with you and us communicating with our mentors. So you guys are great builders, all of our all of our builders around the country are the country's best builders, we don't come in and try to make it a better builder. And we try to help you become a better purchaser of materials, which you take all your skills, and then you combine them with our ability to run purchasing groups. And we're all builders and suppliers and manufacturing people on our end of CBSA. But when you put those two things together, now we kind of help you put that put those things into place where we can all all buy better all all be better at what we do everybody get a better price, everybody, the communication aspect, through our through our through our, through our process. And that's why having all these different builders is good, because one builder might have four homes a month, another builder might have 10 homes a month, you might be popping in one huge house every three months, when you put all those things together and one of your houses is equal to 10 of those smaller ones potentially. So you put all that together and that's why the strength the number bearing down to builders is key. Yeah,

  that's interesting, how I'm how I have a curiosity, how big is CCUSA in terms of managing all this? Because one of the questions that came up today in our roundtable was, you know, how do you support the builders in each one of your markets, you know, behind the scenes because you guys vet a lot of I mean, you're having all these conversations with these one on one interviews talk us a little bit about that process. This episode is brought to you by peloton 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 lesson on business and Pella windows

  CBSA is almost 50 people so we have national contracts to put I'm in an operations department and national vendors that manages our relationships with Ferguson and beacon and Ellen w. And the National contracts manages the colors in the warehouses and the James Hardys all those type of, and then we have operations team that comes in and runs all those meetings. That's about plans on with you guys with our vendors. So it's a lot of work. It's that's the hard part. Yeah, we know, but we have a great team of people that has that industry experience. So when we represent you, we feel like we do it extremely well, where you guys are proud to have us represent you. And we're, you know, we know what we're talking about. So we come in when I

  think you had mentioned a lot of a lot of you and I think even yourself, I mean, you've been in the construction industry since 97. And, you know, who is the gentleman that we met today from Wisconsin, and occasion? Yeah, yeah, but he was in the lumber business before. So you typically look for either past or current builders, as well, as well as maybe purchasing or people that are familiar already with what they're doing, because they then understand the builders, I think that's probably why builders and lumber yards have such a symbiotic relationship, because they're so tied into the day to day, I mean, you know, we might place an order, but ultimately, we're talking to our lumber rep all the way through the project, you know, a lot of my homes will take 12 to 16 months to build. And so I mean, you're spending a lot of time with that single rep. Unlike maybe, let's say tile, you might see him twice at the, you know, at the beginning and maybe a little bit at the end. But do you think that's accurate? And why you've identified those people as the people that you hire for CBSA?

  Yeah, I mean, we take a lot of pride in adding value to your company. So like when we when we wake up every day, our whole mission is to add value to our network. And how do we do that? Like we're not salespeople, we're not out trying to tell you, hey, you know, if you were out saying, look, here's what we here's what we know, here's what we've learned over our experience in this industry for 26 years or 30 years, or, you know, we got people that specialize in lumber on our teams, people that specialize in national contracts, people that do all these different things. So at the end of the day, we can help your company you know, Marty Williams homes, how do we help you we help you buy a better we help him we bring we bring insight that you might not have thought of on your own, like, Hey, Mark, it was 750 builders around the country are doing like we were talking about today and a cost plus contract, you know, little things like that little tidbits of knowledge that like we can help you with and then you then we have something actually to help you with. So we're pretty proud of the team that we've built. And when we come into a new market, we have a process. And it takes you know, soon as we get the builders interested, which is usually pretty easy. Once we get the right builders and meet them Gallic you and put us in the right room with them. Then we started adding everything and you know, 120 days later, we have a fully functioning market. Like we have 35 of them around the country and hopefully 36 Come on up here soon. Yeah, so

  let's talk a little bit about that, specifically. So you know, I had met you obviously through Brad love it. In that we remember the first time I met you was actually on a video you get a video from me, I believe I was in the video. And you're like, Who is this guy? And it was Brad gave me your cell phone number and say, Hey, you got a basically video bomb, Ryan. So video, someone, you have to send that to me, I'll post that. When this goes live. That'd be hilarious. But there's going back to this rural referral thing, right? I mean, it's like one person leads to another. So anyway, long story short, I wanted to bring you on the podcast. And you said, hey, if I'm coming to town, you know, can you you know, can you find, you know, 1520 builders that want to have lunch? And I'll just tell them a little bit of what we're doing. So, you know, you flew in, we had lunch at the COVID Edina, you know, we had 20 builders there. And we met for an hour and a half. And I think you've got maybe four or five verbal commitments, even in that meeting, a lot of people are probably going to be on the fence and then you know, we'll refer another two to three is that pretty typical of how this matures?

  100% That's exactly what happens. We get one great builder that asks us to meet us and figures it out. And then we come in and we have an easy job because it's almost like our service our product speaks for itself. And there's real money you know, we always say there's no smoke and mirrors with our program. It's it's it's real savings. You can't pull the wool over a builder's eyes. I mean, business people in general are savvy owners of businesses. But I'd say builders are probably even even a heightened end of that very protective of what they built very, you know, they're not going to bamboozle a builder. Well.

  Thank you for giving us too much credit.

  I don't know we've seen a pretty, pretty shrewd so when we come in there, there's skepticism, but we win them over real quick and show them that this is a great thing. And then they're they're such raving fans that usually they go talking about other builders. So talking to us about other

  what appealed to it to me was understanding that it's relationship based because I personally love relationships. I love people and I I feel like you know that everybody can win you know, I Feel like a builder can have a good career, my cabinet maker can have a good career, I want everyone around building because it's already such a difficult career in general, like building is hard. It's really difficult industry, but it's very rewarding. And I want all businesses, I just as a big fan of business, I want businesses to make it. And you know, profitability is not a dirty word. You know, margin is not a bad word, you know, making money so that you can be there to service your clients and also have a lifestyle of family like, that's the American dream, right. And you ultimately it this could be your new branding, like the American dream, CB, USA, but you know, basically, you're helping create that, because one thing that there's newly awakened to I've been building for 19, half years, I until you talk today did not realize how much power the the suppliers had over us and not in a negative way. But just because they can only respond if we're not, if we're not clearly identifying to them exactly how much we have going forward. I can't expect them to give me an incredible deal, because they also don't know what I'm going to do. But now taking that law of averages and saying, Whoa, as a group, hey, we're going to do 200 homes this year, give us all a little bit, you know, a percentage of that discount, man, everybody wins in your scenario. So I think when you say you have builders that are skeptical, I think when you understand that, it's very logical. And I think that is the appeal to it.

  Yeah, no, that's your your 100%, right. I mean, the skepticism gets won over by logic, and you start figuring, okay, if I do this, this and this, I can be a better builder, I can be a better purchaser of materials. And one of the things we always talk about is loyalty to your to your, to your vendors, to your to your subcontractors. And we all know that that's important, because we can't build houses without them. But that only goes so far, we have to, you know, our advice is be loyal to two or three of them in every phase of construction. And then keep them on their toes, make them make make them earn it and make them be great at what they do. Because if they're not, they're not just gonna automatically get your next house or your next, whatever, they're gonna be great, they're gonna wake up every day and do their job and do it well. And they got up, they got to give you what you need. Because if they do, then there's, you know, your headset part, it's a partnership. And if they don't, then, you know, we always say be loyal to your, to your family, be loyal to your employees. And then also be loyal to your subcontractors. Some people get those things a little bit, a little bit out of giant, like, I'm gonna use this, this is this trade, or I'm gonna use this lumber company no matter what. And then you sort of

  ignore logic. I mean, so you know, and I think, you know, I, you know, personally, I'm not a low cost provider, none of my clients are coming to me, because I'm the cheapest builder, however, everyone is interested in value. And, you know, whether I'm bringing value in design, or the process or architecture, or, you know, the way we communicate, I mean, everyone, I'm very interested in people's value statement, because that's really important to me personally. And so I often will ask that to a client. And I think one thing that's really interesting about that one, somebody brought this up today, actually, after the meeting was over that, if you're a cost plus builder, and you're getting, let's just say, a very easy example, let's say you had a million dollar house, and you're able to save 50,000, easy numbers $100,000. So you're able to save 10%, with CBSA, as a partner, you know, the the the builder is actually going to make less margin on 100,000 Less, however, both the builder and I both agreed that the client is then now going to add it more back into custom cabinetry, they're going to add it likely back in maybe a pool, or they're going to they're going to add it back another way. And here's what I think is a really compelling way. For me, personally, to sell it as a small volume custom builder is to say, you know, people already struggling with price with interest rates high now and just in general, they're like, oh, man, I don't know what can I really afford to build a high end custom home with you, Mark? Now I can say, not only can you and should you, but actually I have national contract relations that I can get you the same, you know, price as as part of a collective group. I'm now as big as one of the top five builders in the country. Little old me I built four homes, but yet I can still get the same price as a publicly traded Lumber Company. And that's a pretty cool message, because now you have the best of both.

  Yeah, that's exactly right. You do and that's that's the whole plan. That's what we try to do is make sure that you guys are in a position to do that, whether it cost plus or fixed price or different ways builders go about their, their their business, like you said, but when you can tell the homeowner confidently, they get all the perks of building with you, they get you they get the uniqueness of your company, they get the quality of your design, but they get the best products in the country for a much better price than any other building your Saska get it to him that resonates with people and that's about the total cost of ownership. We call it TCO. And that's what we really think about with everything that we do. So like National contracts, when we do those, it's TCO, its value, its value, its price, its rebates, its model home incentives, its marketing incentives. It's it's all the different things that go with that one. When we're when we're dealing with a local supplier of some sort, it's all TCO, it's what's the quality with the service all that. So let

  me ask you this. And this isn't meant to be disrespectful. How many cities are you guys currently in?

  35?

  Why are you not in 100? Because honestly, with a message this compelling, it's like, you know, it's like selling an ice cream cone in the desert, like these things gotta be flying off the shelf, like, what is going on here? Where's where's the objection? I know, there's a lot of work. And I'm saying this somewhat fishy, honestly. But like, honestly, like, it's so it's such a it's so low. It's so low hanging fruit, how could people possibly not want to move

  forward? You know, we're grilling. When we got acquired by builder trend. We've been we've increased that people on our team, our capacity, but it's really kind of a capacity issue. We've never we've just kind of grown slowly, where we've been asked to go, and there's probably another 35 markets, we could be in pretty, pretty.

  Pretty. So it's people. So it need but you

  know, our program is not for everybody, though. I mean, you know, there's some builders that hear our message and say, you know, what, I'm not into working with other people, I've always done it, my myself. And I'm gonna, or I don't pay my bills on time, you know, when we start throwing our message out there, but you know, in order to be they get the best ask for the best pricing and the best service and the best quality, you got to be great yourself. And a lot of builders kind of at that point bow because they're interested in 90 or 120 day payment terms. They're using the supplier as their bank. That's funny. You

  say, Well, there's people on our market. And I'm not I've kind of been on the opposite end of this. And it probably to my own detriment early on in my career. If I got a bill from you on a Thursday, I paid you on a Friday. And all my subs loved me. I mean, who want they paid, I just didn't like owing people money. It drove me bananas, because I don't like debt. And there's some good things with that. And some bad things the I've seen. Now as I get older, it's just a lot of chaos. I mean, if you come with regular tournaments that we pay every 30 days, it becomes more formalized everyone on the team, it just becomes a more regular pattern. And I thought this was interesting for myself personally, is I pulled my subcontractors about two years ago, when we were switching to like, we're going to just do a monthly draw, we're no longer going to pay you every time we get an invoice. We're going to wait until the draw. I asked my my 20 best suppliers. Oh, you know, they said, we didn't even know you're paying US Weekly, or daily. In here. I thought it was a huge advantage. I thought they loved me because I paid them so quick. 90% of them didn't even know. Interesting. And so I was like, Well, man, okay, well, then I guess 30 days just fine. Now, obviously, if you get into the 6090 day thing, that's no bueno. And a lot of, and I just don't think it just especially on a cost plus company, we're always going to be in arrears. Anyway, in terms of billing, well, if you go at 90 days, you know, you're financing your clients build, and that's just not a good idea.

  Yeah. But no, that's true. I mean, that's, that's interesting when you say about that, because I think a lot of vendors probably only check their mailboxes every, or, you know, they assemble everything. And then they just they have a monthly billing process and accounts receivable standard does their thing. So you're paying them every day. And they don't even know that it's common. But there's a big difference. 30 day net turn net 30 is a big, big industry thing. You know, most people most builders, most vendors have that net 30 payment schedule. And but a lot of builders don't adhere to it. And then they got some,

  and I can see sometimes why it's hard because we do a monthly draw. And so let's say you know, we asked for all our invoices, let's say by the 15th of a month, then we'll submit it to the client, let's say on the 25th or 30th. Well, sometimes they might drag their feet, sometimes it might be out of town, sometimes they might be a question, it might hold up the whole draw for another couple of weeks. And so that is a it's it is not that easy to keep that cash consistent in terms of money coming in money going out, and you need a little bit of a float. And nobody's

  perfect. I mean, we're not saying our builders are perfect around the United States, there's things

  but they're doing better than most. I mean, they're not using their subcontractors as banks, they're they're honestly trying to pay their people in a reasonable amount of time. And trying to keep things moving.

  That's exactly right. And that's noticed appreciate it and vital for those guys to step up and give the best pricing that they possibly can on the best products because they got great teams, these these these people, they're paying their people, you know, these these vendors are paying their folks every every, they're getting a paycheck every 15 days. So if they're not if we're not paying them. Well, some people say well, the homeowners, you know, some builders say, well, the homeowner is not paying me on their draw every every, every you know, every 30 days. Why do I have to bid Well, that's just how it goes. You have to if you want the best, especially when labor is tough, and now you know allocation like the last two years. I mean, there was only so much stuff being made and those those lumber suppliers or elders be they weren't taking any more business they really just sticking with what they got. So you couldn't you didn't even have a lot of options. Really the power swung in their favor, you know, and then who are they going to work with? They're going to work with the people that are the best the builder a choice, you know, when able to pay that you

  mentioned some of the data. I thought that was interesting. You had said that most vendors would be happy to drop their bottom 10% Can you expand a little bit on on that thought process? I thought that was an interesting point.

  Sometimes we talk to vendors, you know, we have 1300, vendors, suppliers around the country, and a lot of times they say I'm at capacity. And when we first sit down, we start saying, hey, you know what, you only have the business of five of these builders, and there's 20 of them, then their first instinct might be like, Well, gosh, I'm already running hard. I don't know how I can, I can serve as another 15. And then the next, you know, once they start thinking about it, it's Wait a minute, I don't have to add, if I really am truly at capacity, then drop your bottom ones that you chase, you know, and in any business, I think your your, your, your worst 10% take up 90% of your time.

  80 is the 8020 rule. I think right that 80% of your work comes from 20% of your people, but also 80% of your problems come from 20% of your people, it seems to be pretty common. Yeah.

  So get rid of that bottom group. Yeah, putting in CBSA builders that kind of pay on time that all the all the good things that come from it. So that's that's really what we talked about with that. And that's what the vendors mostly do. And then they love it because they have an account. That's that's not just one builder, they can come in into drop into one of our monthly meetings, and they can talk to 20 of their customers at the same time roll out a new product talk to something by itself, they love it.

  This episode is brought to you by adaptive adaptive is an AI software that helps you solve all your bill pay in the construction world. In construction bill pay is quite messy. You get every single one of your subcontractors submitting different types of bills, different formats, this AI technology is able to take all that information, help you auto code it so that the days of endless hours of coding it into your software and into QuickBooks is now done much much faster. Additionally, they're working on software that will help you with the draw process. So whether you're submitting it to a title company for payment, or a client with a click of a button, you can now initiate drawers, as well as tracking your lien waivers. It's been an absolute game changer for us. So if you're looking to speed up and save time, I'd highly recommend adaptive you can find out more about them at Adaptive dot build. Additionally, you can listen to Matt Cavanna when I talk about their company in Episode 15 on the curious builder podcast. This episode is brought to you by Mahnomen resawn timbers based out of Hugo Minnesota, this talented family owned business goes all around the country taking down barns reclaimed beans, and then repurposing them and putting that American spirit back into your homes, your commercial projects, your your bars, your pubs. They've been in coffee shops, they've been all the way to New York and Ralph Lauren, to the homes in Minnesota that we build, I couldn't be more proud to call them a partner and our proud supporter of our show, as well as our building. So whether you're an architect or designer, or a builder, I highly recommend Mahnomen resign timbers for any of your reclaimed wood uses. You can find out more about them at Mr. timbers.com, as well as episode number 10 where we interview them on our podcast. Yeah, that's very interesting. One thing I think it's important to let our listeners know too is like, I'll use custom cabinets as an example. Right? That seems to come up a lot. You know, we're not gonna be able to give away a competitive advantage or something that we truly believe in that can't let's say be mass produced across like my custom cabinet shop, there's no way I'm guessing he could do 20 of our builders, right. So is it based more on commodities and larger produced items, then it would be like specific like ornate rails or plaster, you know, some of those things that take probably a lot of labor to is that accurate?

  Yes. Mostly mostly a lot of the material commodities, lumber, which would lumber and drywall and roofing and concrete and, you know, siding, siding, exactly, all that stuff. And then we do have a lot of those intricate things too. But they can only serve as so many people. So maybe that that custom stair company or railing company you mentioned, they might pick up a couple more builders to round out their round about their arsenal, but they're certainly not going to work with with the whole builder group. So we may need in a lot of cases, we might need five or six different vendor partners in the category just to kind of to kind of properly service all the builders, depending on geographic geography and all that stuff in the market. Right.

  Interesting. What is so even when I met you a year ago, Minnesota in Minneapolis specifically was on your radar, even at that point in time. Was there a barrier to entry? I mean, it sounds like there's a lot of cities you could go into? Why Minnesota and why now? Versus let's say other markets.

  Yeah. And when we narrowed down what we do is we have like a grading scale of all these markets around the country, and we look at our 35 markets that we're in and we look at the best ones and what makes them the best and what we did and how much time and effort and what we know all that recipe and then we say okay, well, how many permits, how many starts are there in a market how many builders are there that are doing between five and 200 homes a year and we have all this data and we start crunching it and figuring out all the different markets that are good for us. And then we come up with a grading scale. So right now we're working on, you know, at any given point, we have six raiders and markets that we're working on. Right now Kansas City and Omaha where a parent company is in St. Louis, and Minnesota, and Portland and Tampa, St. Pete. And so all these type of you know, we've identified them. And then really what's changed here is, you know, I met you, right? Honestly, I mean, that's really, you know,

  interesting. So it's not that it's just takes one person to kind of flip the pendulum, it really

  is where all of a sudden you say, Hey, this is something I'm, I'm doing. Who's with me now, and, you know, we get we get a lunch meeting, like we had today, you know, 811 18 people and 11 building companies there. And just, you know, just one guy saying, you know, because hearing it from you, you heard it from Brad, Brad heard it from other people, you know,

  we have in Brisbane in it, right? So it was also a word of mouth. I mean, it's not only who you trust and what they say. But there's something about experience, too. And so when someone's already been into it, and

  exactly, and that, you know, Brad has been a member of ours for eight years, or almost since he started his company. And he heard about it from a longtime builder in Scottsdale, Rod column, who I've known rod for 15 years awesome guy, and carries a lot of weight when a builder that you know, and trust says, Hey, I'm profiting from this, or I'm doing I'm running my business this certain way, whatever it is, you're gonna listen, because you respect them, and there's no more selling necessary. You're like, I get it, if you're doing it.

  I trust it. And I liked that word. You said critical mass, it's like all of a sudden, you've got, you know, you've reached a certain point where like, Okay, this is happening?

  Well, you know, there's two things I guess one is we're a marketplace business. So you have to have critical mass of builders in order to startups grow Purchasing Group, you know, you can't one builder can't call me and say, Hey, Ryan, I'm gonna start a Purchasing Group. Well, you're not a Purchasing Group, you're purchasing dude. One. But what we did, it's interesting, too, we just came up with a new product builder trend purchasing, it's a builder trend rebates is what it's called. And it's it does that it serves the one off you have to be a builder trend customer, you have to you have to you don't have the software. But once you have that, now, you can jump on a rebate program, which is brand new, hot off the shelf. We just started it 90 days ago. Walk me through that. What is that? Exactly? So it's rebates where you can get rebates from top manufacturers around the country without having to be in a CV USA market is for builders that are not in one of our markets, maybe more smaller remodelers maybe all different reasons why maybe you don't want to work with anybody. Maybe you're so

  you could actually be in a market but choose not to be part of CB USA, but still have the buildertrend marketplace.

  Yeah, if you're not, if you're not like a fit for the big program, the big CV USA program and you're you know, you run your company differently or whatever, then you could have the berbil different purchasing. So if you're interested in that, and you're a builder trend customer listening to this, you know, reach out to me and I'll hook you up with the right people there. I'm sure you'll pop my

  email on here. Everything will be in the show notes for sure. Give me a small example. So let's say I'm in we used to have a cabin in Montana, so I'm gonna pick northwestern Montana, Whitefish, Montana. So assume you don't have a CV USA up there. Do you know but I want to get one in Bozeman or wherever I was just in Bozeman. Last weekend for a wedding. Let's go to Bozeman

  Yellowstone show. That's what got me on the boat. I want to get out there. But you went out there. I was

  out there for wedding. My neighbor and architect friend just got married. And so my sister went to school out there. And anyway, we just spent some time out there. But I mean, it's beautiful country. Oh

  my gosh, I fell in love. I never been there just watching the show. But if you're a builder, yes,

  I'm a builder, and Whitefish, Montana. And I'm using builder trend, and I ordered at $20,000 of James Hardie siding, like, walk me through. This is a practical example of like, how does this work? Exactly.

  We're building the purchasing program out right now. And we're adding more manufacturers to it. Where it's a small program, now we only have three or four there now, but we have plans to get to 30 or 40 different programs, different manufacturer rebates. Okay, so jump on. Now, if you're a builder training customer, and you're doing the the two packages was two of the two of the three packages that comes free. The other one, there's a small up charge. But bottom line is, it'll pay for itself. It gets you into a rebate program that

  three just in a rupee volume program. So it's like, Hey, listen, I'm totally making this up by saying this isn't even right. But like, James Hardy has a program I'm in it. It's based on 2% of whatever your total usage is, you get some form of something back.

  Yeah, and it's all it's all receipt driven. James Hardy is not in it yet. Their partner of ours, there's a lot they're longtime partners. CBSA is there they're working on them again in the buildertrend purchasing program, but it's all received driven to that technology. And that's the beautiful part about being owned by one of the biggest and best software companies in the country. When we come up with a new program like this well are you know, they have the best software out there. So now it's it's really cool. You got to check it out if you're a customer but you just snap and receive your picks through your receipt, it does the rest lies, it does this, it loads the rebate in there, just with your cell phone, you pop it in there. And you know you have your build a tribe app open, you pop it in, and then you get a rebate that's right into your account. So it couldn't possibly be any easier. And as program grows, we feel like every builder trend customer in a country is going to get on it. Why wouldn't they? And it's going to be a way where if you don't use builder trend today, you should and this might be another reason why

  there's another asset for them. That's one of the reasons why I assume they bought you.

  Yeah, yeah. And there's industry leading software, it's the best out there. And oh, by the way, that another another asset as you get this great. Yeah, that's gonna increase your profitability. Well, out of curiosity,

  what was some of the reasons for buildertrend to acquire CB, USA? Because walk me through co construct? I know a lot of commercial contractors in particular, and cost plus pillars use CO construct. So buildertrend took out COVID Strike, which was one of their main competitors. Yeah. And were you at that time because you kind of in negotiate, walk us through that that was the kind of a dynamic period,

  it was an interesting several months for us. So we, we got acquired by CO construct first, okay. Danny, why it was rolled on, guy that ran it. And he came by and we have negotiation with them. And you know, we thought highly of them. And we made the decision to sell to co construct and then about three months after that buildertrend Bob co construct and subsequently us that sounds like

  someone who buys land. And then before they close on it, they've already sold the land and the job to somebody else. Right, exactly. That's a good way to be builders co construct, right.

  So they, you know, I know Dan Houghton is there, as their CEO and founder and Steve and Jeff Duggar are the co founders and we got to be great buddies with them. Brian Pavlik and I, and we go out there all the time. And we they're awesome people. I mean, they started Dan and Steve and Jeff, they started the company in 96 out of their garage, and they've grown to be 30,000 customers worldwide. And you know, everything that they've done, but they're great guys are down to earth, the ground, they like long lost brothers of ours. So we always enjoy going out there. And they said that they didn't even realize what they bought. At the time, the new Congress tried to add a company called CB, USA. But then when they really made the deal to take out their biggest competitor and joined forces, they found us and then you know, Dan says it was kind of the cherry on top. They've had a good time. And now we're, we're really, we have the power of them behind us now, and they our instructions are to continue to do what we do and find great builders and grow to more markets. And it's great to have that firepower.

  Well, I mean, you can probably tell him a bit of a ham sometimes. So I met Dan, just briefly at the builder show. And I got one of the buildertrend white hats and I walked over to him with my pen and asked him if he'd sign the underside of the bill. So I have a Dan Houghton signed buildertrend hat myself probably worth saying, Oh, it's definitely worth at least interview.

  I'm sure he had a funny, funny quip. But you guys would get along real good, the more Yeah, but he's a great guy a lot of fun to hang out with. And it's a heck of a booth over there. Oh,

  wow. International builder show talking about you. I guess that leads into our next point of networking. But I mean, anyone out there listening, I still can't believe it's taken me 19 years to other builders. So I've always wanted to go but having three small kids and just, you know, thinking I always thought like, Well, I'm a local builder in Minneapolis. Like why do I need to go to an international builder show like, and I don't spend a lot of products in my homes. I trust my designers and my architects, my trade partners, but I so undervalued the power of networking, and just seeing what else is out there and has absolutely lit up, you know, a fire under me in terms of just like expanding your horizons like travel. I love travel, because I feel like it makes you a better person. It helps you relate to other people in different cultures. But as I feel like you'll learn a lot. I feel like the the builder's show is like traveling it for an analogy, essentially.

  I agree. That's awesome. So that was your first one.

  That was my first lesson. Yeah, I plan to go every year. No,

  but yeah, so it's February, end of February this year. It's the latest one that I've that I've seen, which

  works out good because last year it fell on the same weekend as my annual boys ski trip to Montana. So I didn't get to go skiing for the first time in like 30 Some years last year because I chose the builder show my wife said it's one or the other. It's not both. And so now there's a 30 day there's a three week period between the two so now I can do the skiing and the builder

  ship that's life. That's even better. You end up learning so much at that show, though. I mean, it's hard to explain that show to somebody who's never been like it's like a trade show on steroids. I mean, it's craziness and you know, you got like koehlers booth that's like multi millions and it's like a city wall. But it's like that you're you know, people picture a trade show was like a little stand here with like, a couple seats there. It's like no, no, this is this.

  I've got running water. They've got lights. They've got jungles like the Rainforest Cafe. There's like animals hanging out that there's like monkeys swinging. I mean, it was unbelievable. koehlers Booth was oh, yeah, it was like, you know, they used

  to have a lot of like swimsuit models all over the place you really think they can that

  was too bad. I was really looking forward to seeing you in a swimsuit next year. You'll have to up your sponsorship. Hopefully you don't get bought by Kohler or they'll death They bring Matt back. That's funny

  man. They're a great partner of ours, though. I mean, all of us, all of guys are Colorado's people. They've been great supporters of ours. And we're blessed to have partners like that, you know, builders, like you guys and partners like them and suppliers that make it all happy, cool industry that we're in. And sometimes people don't, you know, newer younger people newer to our industry, I try to give them a little tidbits like older people in the industry gave me this is a great industry that we're in, and there's home builders associations, and there's all this national and there's so much pride in our industry. And you wonder why people put so much time and effort into our industry, and then you ran it for a long time, and you start realizing, you know what, this is pretty neat. And all the things that come from it, the builder shows a great example. It's a reminder of like, wow, we're in one of the nation's the world's biggest industries, we're building stuff. Math, meaning we're building families biggest purchase they're ever gonna make and we're connected to, you know, it's a leading indicator housings, always a leading indicator of the economy, because if people are building the homes, life good,

  yeah, if they've been so tied into the American dream. And so I mean, we get to have a whole podcast just on that. One of the questions I want to go back to is you have this thing called the power 30. I don't know much about that. Tell us a little bit about what the power 30 is, because it's coming up here in September.

  You got to come you got to come at some point next year, next year, next year in September in Austin, Texas. Yeah. So it's always in Austin. No, it moves. So it was in Boston, Massachusetts last year. It's been all over the place, we move to a cool location every year. But it's really an opportunity for CB USA builders to get together and have a great conference and talk about industry stuff about CB USA some some of it is like where we're going and what we're doing as the nation's biggest Purchasing Group for home builders, by far where we're heading with it, getting our advice, getting the advice of our best builders. And then there's industry speakers, the speakers from outside of our industry, there's it's all the networking, it's really one of the coolest events and we put it on with our national manufacturers. So all of them are they're the top people from every one of our national manufacturers. And you know, you're ended up at a at a at a great property with like 100 of the nation's best, our top 30 That's why it's called Power 30. It's actually CB USA is top spending 30 companies. Plus, in addition to that, a whole bunch of other builders that are CVSA builders as well that are very influential in the industry that just want to come. Anybody that wants to come, can can attend and the best manufacturers it's really neat. And you like it, when is it a two day deal three day Sunday to Wednesday, swales fly buddy and on Sunday and start Sunday night and then leave leave on Wednesday, but it's one of our favorites of the year. It's gotta give me goosebumps, like that kind of firepower. In a room for three days. It's nice, so you'll fit in real good.

  Now I'd love it. I mean, just I love meeting new people and even having the podcast I mean, that one of the reasons why we in July decided to go weekly, is we want to the first nine months everything was Minnesota based because it was important to me that all our interviews be on camera. I just feel like that was something that's obviously the podcast, most people listened to it. But I feel like as an interviewer, and as someone that's talking to someone, it's just much more natural and more enjoyable to have a face to face conversation. And if I can coincide a interview when someone is traveling to town, like you are so much the better. But now we've made the decision to you know, I want to reach out to the rest of the countries but there's so many builders, you know, you know, throughout the country that I want to I want to share their stories, hearing people's stories and then bringing people together is something that gives me a lot of personal joy, but I feel like it also people's stories need to be shared.

  It's always well you're you've done a fantastic job just just in the time you've been doing this I mean your natural interviewer you're very you know, you're curious builders a great, great name for it because you are that people that you know the smartest people ask the best questions.

  Wow, I'm working. I'm working I'm I do like this, this roast of myself. When I told my wife I was starting the curious builder, which oddly enough, I was so I was on Brad's podcast a year ago actually, almost today. We're recording this right now in August. It was about a year ago today that we aired and was 30 days later I started the podcast because I'm like, oh the interview with Brad I'm like, I never even listened to a podcast before. I'm like this is amazing. I so enjoy this and Brad's just like Oh boy, here we go. So that's what got you into it. Yeah, I was on a podcast so and then after that, I was like, Okay, I'm going to do this I love

  the concept of doing it in your in the studio here though. I've done a whole bunch of podcast but this is the first one I've done in studio all the other ones have been

  you are officially the first guest that that has ever flown here to have a in person interview so you set the bar pretty high now so you know if someone wants to have the interview, you know I'll say well I don't know where I live check actually flew here for

  it. That's right. Emily who yeah who? Well, I'll put a plug in is a fantastic studio a great destination here in Excelsior I'd say it's worth worth a trip to come out here not only to hang out with Hanging out with Mark. But to be on this prestige as

  prestigious looks like we might have to quote you on that. As we're wrapping up, I had two questions that I wanted to run by you before we get to some personal stuff. One is, at this point, you've interviewed 1000s of builders, what are some things that you've seen across the country? And I was really interested to see, like, you know, what are some common themes, common traits, common threads that you see among your builders. And now because we understand that CBSA really only takes on the best of the best, the cream of the crop, you are surrounded by the most talented, the most skilled and the best business people. So it's, it's really an elite group of people that you represent, and are a part of and really have organized, what are some common things that you see, regardless of what market that if someone was listening, that was going to start either a building company, or just really any business can say, Wow, those those are some things that I want to put into my business?

  That's a great question. I'd say I'd say first thing is listening, I'd say a lot of the best, the best business owners that I've met, and I've really tried to grab this from from them. And I talked about this and thing I was doing last month, but don't just try to solve people's problems until you understand what they are. And I think no matter what you're selling, no matter what you're building, no matter what you're doing, take the time to understand your person, listen to them, find out what their needs are, and then seek to address those needs. And I think that's what the best builders do. They don't just start saying, Oh, you're interested in a house? Well, I'm the best. And here's why. And here's what I'm doing. And here's what you need. And here's when they're like, wait a minute, I didn't even tell you what I want to do yet. So I think listeners are undervalued. I think in any business, that's great. And then being forward thinking, I think, trying to find a forward thinking company that's willing to adapt and change. Being able to be adaptable. I think that's the best thing that I've seen that that's successful building companies, and probably business owners in all industries. But this happens to be the really the only industry that I know, for my for my whole career. But you have to be adaptable, because things change. You know, and then being a problem solver, I guess my list is getting longer here. Because you know, if you're if you're not being able to be adaptable, because there's so many different problems to sell. And this year, you might need to conquer interest rates that are double what they have ever been well, how do you get people to move off at 3% interest rate to double their mortgage right now? It's tough. But there's ways to do it. Do they need a house? Do they not need a house? You know, are they going to refi in two years or four years anyway, it's a different conversation. Whereas last year, it was more, we couldn't get material. We can't bind me to your I don't care what it costs. I can't even get it to the job. It's like there's so many you've mentioned it earlier in this podcast, being a builder is a tough thing. You can't just go and build a house. No one knows how to do that. That's why they pay pay builders to do it. Because it's hard,

  right? I mean, you do hear about people, I play tennis with a guy who, you know, remodeled his own house and took them three times the amount of time and probably double the cost. And after the end. He's like, Oh, man, he's like next time, I'm just going to hire you. And I'm like, Well, I told you don't take any satisfaction with that. I mean, there is more skill here. I think when you build for a long time, you sometimes I think any career, I think you've done it for a long time, you sometimes don't realize how much you know, or kind of what skills you accumulated. And so then looking back, because it's kind of fun, sometimes look back at yourself, when you first started, you're like, wow, I really knew nothing. And you know, luckily, a whole bucket of gumption. And he didn't say you weren't done with that bucket of gumption. But

  one of my builder buddies done in Texas as an analogy, I kind of forget what the doggone thing was, but it was something to the effect of you go to a restaurant, and you eat, whatever, they're good. And then you can go home and you think you can make it yourself. You know, you know where I'm going? You know, you think because you built a deck or because you can pound a nail or you get a screw gun or something you're like, Yeah, I could probably go do this myself. But it doesn't equate I mean, there's so many things that are go into what we do 30,000 pieces and parts and dealing with municipalities and trying to find the labor and dealing with the bank, you have to have a different hat on every day to do what to do.

  I was just my Uncle Bill for 30 years. And, you know, I suspect each generation has gotten less and less ADHD, but I suspect to have some remnants of the family tree in me. And I think I think actually, this business works really well with people with attention deficit Deficit Disorder, because you're constantly being your attention is constant like a squirrel. I mean, the if you actually track the number of things that you did, or the number of fires that you put out, or the number of calls in, it can be really overwhelming because it's not a very linear line. And I will say this, I can handle a lot of balls in the air. But I will say that I really appreciate partners like a builder trend that helped bring order to the chaos. And I think at the end of the day, you know, the reason why it's so complicated is you're building this so emotional on top of it. It's the most expensive thing you'll ever buy. Usually, it's the most emotional things. It's your families where you going to live, you look at it every single day. And on top of it all we're building a one of a kind thing at least as a custom home builder. outside in the elements. I mean, it's amazing. We get as much over right as we do, and, you know, it's held to such a high standard because of those first couple things. And really, the standards are really set at a point that aren't achievable. And so I think it's really on us as builders to educate our clients like, Hey, we love what we do, we really value our relationship with our, with our not only our trade vendors and our people, but you know, there has to be some grace in this too. And knowing that we're doing the best we can. And there are definitely times that things don't go according to plan. And that is the partner you want to be aligned with how they handle it, when it really goes poorly. Probably says more than it does when things go well. And I heard a great quote recently, where it was don't judge me by my worst days, don't judge me by my best days judge me by what I do regularly in between, I think that is really, that's a really great quote, it's too long to fit on my bumper, but

  I'm gonna I'm gonna use it I like that speaks to the consistency of of a builder of a company owner of anybody that's shows up.

  And we don't always get it, right. I mean, I haven't always done that the right way. And you sort of learned, like, oh, I had a client one time where we had a driveway. And for whatever reason, I think the city actually required just comes to me now I have until the street decades. But anyway, long story short, normal driveway with here was like 16 feet. And I think when we went to get the final SEO, I wish the building inspector would have brought this up earlier. But evidently, without a fire hydrant on the property. The driveway had to be 24 feet wide, and a hammerhead turned around for a fire truck. And so the driveway ended up being and said, like, if my memory goes instead of like 10 grand, it was like 20 grand, and the client was furious that I didn't know that. And I kind of said, you know, this is kind of a gray area, like, I don't know how I don't know, the fire codes of a fire truck and that turn radius. And there's nobody ever brought this up from the city either. So it's kind of on them. But I just said, You know what, how about this, I'll split the cost with you, I'm sorry, I guess this learning experience and he to this day still brings that up as like he goes, that's why we chose you because of how you handle that too. And sometimes we handle those good. That was a good story. I've had plenty of that I didn't handle it or how I should have but man, you learn a lot from those things.

  That's a great story. And he ended up getting a bigger driveway. Like his money, he

  got to figure out something. Yeah, you got a bigger driveway. And I got a story out of it. I guess $10,000 of that driveway is mine. I should go back and see if I can at least skateboard down it with my kids.

  Well, to your point that there's a lot of there's a lot of things that go into building that this is weird. You know, Brad and I were talking about this because yet you know, it's built outside. It's built in Minnesota. It's built in Cleveland, it's built in 110 degrees in Scottsdale, it's built with just it's weird. Nothing's built outside, when you build outside. Well, I

  do think the future you spoke about it recently, I think on even on Brad's podcast, where it was like panelization and off site is going to help us both with cost and affordability. It's going to help us with labor. Because as the labor pool shrinks, how are we going to be more efficient in building and I know they've been doing it in Europe now for a while. And we've been very slow to adopt those types of building practices. Right? We're a very stubborn bunch of people.

  Very, very true. But it's sweeping across, it's going to be there. I mean, you could be we could frame a house in you know, week, that takes you eight weeks. I mean, it helps you would cough, it helps you with with labor crunch, it's the way to go. It's going to happen. And it's common,

  and we need it. Because I mean, we need affordable housing. I mean, there was just a housing first, Minnesota is our biggest housing advocate here in Minnesota. And they just published something again, actually just yesterday on LinkedIn. And it was basically the median average price in Minnesota was like 524, which was like 70 to 80,000 higher than all the surrounding states, which for us, in particular, I can't speak to because I don't know that much about politics. But a lot of it has to do with city codes, maybe some other regulations that are added on a variety of things. But on top of it all, we are in a place where we need more affordable housing. And you know, a little bit like, you know, CB USA has the ecosystem of the ocean, I think the ecosystem of the ocean applies for we need starter homes, we need mid level homes, we need high end homes, we need custom homes, we need remodels, like Minnesota, specifically, we're 60 to 90,000 units short of what our population needs. So there's a great need for more building here. And, and quickly because we need, we need housing for people. Because if you get to a point where you don't have housing, people leave the state, you lose your numbers and all kinds of bad things happen, you know, in terms of like, you know, the Minnesota GDP, if you will,

  that's pretty healthy number those 60 to 90. Does that mean that's probably

  is that normal, from what you've seen in other markets do that, that everyone's that far behind,

  depending on where you're at? I mean, you know, there's a time and a place where there's way too much where there's a surplus. Yeah, that's not good. And that's that's, that's tough on our industry, you know, back in Oh, eight. Yeah, that was bad. So I think you want to it's hard to be, but it's, that's interesting,

  but it does two things. I mean, ultimately, it's hard to get affordable pricing if there's such high demand. So and I mean, obviously partnering with CBSA would be one way to leverage that down to make it more affordable, which is great. That's one lever, but there's multiple levers that we think about Really in Minnesota, but just really across the country need to be mindful of? Because if housing is a fundamental need, you know, and so people need places to live.

  Yeah. I mean, and that's why that's why, you know, it's such a resilient industry. But right now, I mean, it's, it's fine with bouncing back. It was a little bit of a lull there for some people. But, you know, it's trying to bounce back strong because people need housing. Well, the demand is there. Yeah. Let's now all those mortgages are back out there now that you heard about back back in the day, not the ones that sunk us not the not the bad ones at what eight 910 stuff. But the ones that year and a week you refi not, you're going to refi and then the next five years, so you might as well build what you want. And then what are you going to do wait for interest rates to go down and going down again, those days of those being three girls are done.

  I agree. Same Same with costs. I mean, if someone's going to tell me that, you know, the cost of you know, of high end windows, or any window for that matter is going to be cheaper five years from now than it is today. No, so it's still a good time to build good time to buy. Oh,

  exactly. I saw that 50 You look at that 50 year, interest interest rate, though. That's what you want to look at? Oh, I

  see looking at it over 50 years, you want to

  show your customer that should have that laminated and throwing it and female gold customer? And yeah, because you know it because then that puts it in perspective. Yeah, it's it's seven now, or 6.8, or whatever it is now for a 30 year, but you're judging that off of off of the threes that it was, what you need to judge it off of is the 19 that it was or the 50 when when your parents bought a home? Or you know, I mean, that's so the price of money, is what it is, but it's gonna level out. I mean, it's probably you know, the end, though, if anybody knew for sure, they'd probably be on an island, but they say it's gonna level out in the fives, and probably the healthiest place for it to be Yeah, it's probably a little higher than it's going to be. We're going to do a delay buying, because it's gonna go down a point or point a half, when you're going to refi Anyway, the next

  day, right? Yeah, just, you know, just make sure your Burton partner or you're, you're partnering up with a builder who's CPOs today, you've just lowered your interest rate, and you should build now. Closing pluck last thing just on you personally. What would you say? How do you self educate? What are some ways that you kind of stay? I mean, I know you're talking and you're networking. But you know, obviously, you've been doing this for a long time, I guess. How do you stay sharp? You know, kind of on your own, if you will?

  Yeah, definitely. I read a lot of books. And they stay plugged into all the HBA stuff that comes out in the NA HB things that I try to read all that stuff about the things and the trends and the Metro studies and Mark bounds a good friend of ours had big big industry speaker and as far as you know, all the different stuff that's come in forecasting, he's he's usually at the power 30. And I think he'll be there this year. And just staying plugged into all the new things that IBS shows the regional shows the all the different stuff, talking to our builders, I mean, we have the best building companies in the country. So sitting down and spending the day with you and seeing your operation and seeing how you build homes, seeing your office and, you know, you just pick up so much from from all that. And I have the greatest job in the world because I get to go do all of them are hanging out with the best builders in the United States and see their trials and tribulations, what they go through what they wish they would have done different what they were what they've done, great and then have that,

  have you thought about writing a book, you'd be in a very great position to get all this knowledge and put together like two decades worth of one day knowledge into a book

  one day, we'll do that it's a good idea. Well co writes,

  well, the the ghost writer, we could just anyway, you got you have more exposure to this than I do. So if you could go back to the beginning, what advice would you give yourself in your career?

  That's a good question. You know, right out of college, I jumped into the building industry and didn't know a whole lot about it. And I would have probably hold on to some stocks there that that I sold but I think be a little bit be a little bit calmer. And listen, I always tell everybody, listening is the most undervalued skill and I wish I was better at it back in the day. It's called down a little bit. Listen, don't think about the next thing you're going to say don't think about what you're going to respond all that stuff, just kind of relax and take it all in, and then formulate your next thing that you're going to say because you end up the smartest people I've known over all these years are the best they they they're calm their listeners, they take it all in, and then they advise you don't have to speak right away. Sometimes silence is okay. Take a few seconds of silence after somebody says him and think before you reply, it's not there. It's day and age. It's like somebody gets to talk to you. It'd be like this I could do this way. So I tell myself at that age, just relax. Take it all in.

  That's, that's phenomenal advice. I wish I had heard that. You know, 42 years ago the day I was born. Thank you very much for coming on the show. If people want to reach out to you what's what's a good contact for you?

  This is fun. Thanks for having me. spending the day with you has been fantastic. Ryan and CB usa.us Is my email. CB usa.us is our is our website if you want to go there's inquiries on there you can see what 35 markets we're in around the country and if we're in your market If not, you'd be interested in starting one link. We're starting one here in Minneapolis. builder trend.com is awesome, awesome website there. We'd love to talk to you about builder trend or our new builder trend purchasing program. If you're a builder, trend customer and anything you need reach out to me and I'm pointing in the right direction. But thank you, sir.

  Very good. Thanks for coming on. And we'll have everything in the show notes. Thanks for tuning in. And if you enjoyed what you listen to please give us a five star rating. And if you don't, just don't rate it. Thanks again for listening to the curious builder Mark willandra host signing off till next week. Thank you Thanks for listening to the curious builder podcast if you liked 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 while we can keep doing so like and review and please share with your friends and family. Find out more at curious builder podcast.com

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