Q & A Episode 9 - Building Relationships Alongside a Successful Construction Business Through Generosity
Episode #9 | Q&A with Mark D. Williams | Building Relationships Alongside a Successful Construction Business Through Generosity
Mark Williams discusses the profound influence his parents have had on his life and business. He also highlights key lessons he learned from his father about building relationships, managing finances, and delegating responsibilities, as well as the importance of kindness and generosity instilled by his mother.
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About The Curious Builder
The host of the Curious Builder Posdast is Mark D. Williams, the founder of Mark D. WIlliams Custom Homes Inc. They are an award-winning Twin Cities-based home builder, creating quality custom homes and remodels — one-of-a-kind dream homes of all styles and scopes. Whether you’re looking to reimagine your current space or start fresh with a new construction, we build homes that reflect how you live your everyday life.
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00:00:29 Minneapolis isn't the the only Market though go to CB usa. uslearn to see if there's an established or upcoming chapter near you that's CB usa. uslearn additionally episode number 26 has an interview with Ryan lipek from cbusa for [Music] more welcome to C builder podcast I'm Mark Williams your host today's question for our Q&A session is who is the most influential person in your life life and how have they impacted you wow this is a Whopper I would have to say without a doubt that this would be my mom and dad
00:01:10 and it's interesting to reflect on that I'm 43 I grew up we as I've mentioned previously on the podcast I forget which episode it is uh in December I interviewed my dad and he's had such a huge impact on me so maybe we'll break him down one at a time my dad was a builder for 25 30 years he Built Homes he built probably 40 homes a year and I remember as a kid things that I do now that I had no idea would how helpful they would be in running a business and so I'm going to speak mostly to about business things but it
00:01:45 does how we run our business and how we do the little things is how we do big things as they say and so and maybe everyone thinks that their parents are the most influential in their life but that's just who comes to mind for this question for me and you know when I was a little kid I remember that my dad used to have my sister Ashley and I pick up the phone we couldn't have been that old maybe seven eight nine 10 years old pretty young and I sort of remember not liking it and I remember my dad saying because this was
00:02:12 before cell phones and computers and email he'd say you know get Bob Anderson on the phone and I would have to go to the phone book I would get Bob Anderson on the phone and I would call i' say hi Bob this is Mark Williams I'm David williams' Son uh my dad asked me to to give you a call and set up a call with him and then if he answered or he responded then I would hand the the phone over to my dad and basically I was being a secretary but one thing I didn't realize and I I have to believe that my
00:02:39 dad probably did this more out of a larker because he was extremely good delegator I don't think he well I have to ask him I don't think he was quite this smart to think that like hey 30 years from now these interpersonal skills will benefit you greatly in in talking with people but regardless of his intention or not it taught me so much about how to engage people especially strangers and you know not not to really ever be afraid I think after you start cold calling people as8 nine 10 year old you kind of could talk
00:03:08 to anybody and oddly enough when I I had one job other than having my own career uh out of college I had a lawnmowing business in high school that I sold and then when I was in college after I graduated I was a one-year uh copier salesperson and cold calling is a huge part of it and I remember them saying that you know one of the biggest problems that people had was to call people and you know they kind of they wanted you to call like 50 to 70 people a day and I remember trying to calling a hundred people a day and I remember sort
00:03:39 of thinking it was a personal challenge but I wonder if I could have done that had I not had sort of that training as a young kid anyway just kind of a funny memory um so that was a memory for sure that even now you know calling people you know I certainly email a lot we just in the day and time where it's very convenient to email people but um I actually start my sales process that way that the first thing that when I do when I get an email is I will do a 15-minute phone call with somebody and I find that
00:04:04 you can sort of disarmingly ask them about their budget and a very you know comfortable way not not aggressive and you know ultimately if they can't we're both both parties both the person who's trying to build a house or Remodel and me as a builder is trying to get to as quick as possible is this the right person without wasting people's time and it's respectful I think you know there's a part of me that was like oh something has to take a long time and there is a Nuance to that obviously you don't want to rush people but I I
00:04:34 don't think respecting people's time is a negative thing I and I think telling that is making sure you're genuine about it is in that first 15 minute phone call you know addressing things and saying like what kind of budget are you looking for you know what kind of experiences do you have and I think those phone communication skills are extremely important and it saves you hours on the back end I know earlier on in my career I would take every meeting in any meeting like most young entrepreneurs
00:04:57 and you you'll cha like a dog chasing a ball down the street you'll you'll talk to anybody because you're just looking for a sale now you know identifying your ideal client like I didn't even know what that meant until a few years ago you know so for let's call it 16 17 years of my career you know you're just aggressively chasing anyone that'll call you and man you spend a lot of time doing that um so anyway phone skills was something that comes to mind I remember again just being a kid we used to empty
00:05:21 the dishwasher that was kind of one of our chores that we did around the house mowing the lawn and doing other things but I remember this saying and and to this day I still use it I haven't taught my kids just yet but I know that I will and my sister and I just having seen her um out in Tahoe uh for a brother sister trip here recently we talked about it and it's um once a job has begun never leave it till it's done and I remember this that uh I must have been unloading the bottom rack of the Dish Dish the
00:05:48 dishes and then like walked away probably went outside to play baseball or basketball or something and just left the top dishes undone probably left the door open too and I remember anyway I must have done this more than once and I remember my dad teaching me this little slogan and so sometimes whether I was raking the yard and I was halfway done I would think you know what once the job has begun never leave it till it's done and there's something about just finishing what you're starting and so
00:06:14 much of the business stuff that I do today is simple and you know if my kids have any interest in owning a business of any sort whether it's building or not I think most of the things I'm going to teach him are probably not going to be rocket science most of the stuff is going to be pretty simple like that another one was my dad teaching me very uh simple um business stuff and this stuff all sounds super easy maybe people are rolling their eyes at this but honestly a lot of business is is simple
00:06:41 it can be simple doesn't make it easy but it can be simple and one of the ideas that he said was if you make a $100 I think I asked my Dad how are you successful or why are you successful and he said you know if you make a $100 you know uh a day and you spend 101 you're going to go broke you're going to go bankrupt you're going to go out of business you won't be around if you spend $99 you're a profitable business you will you will stay in business I mean that such a simple thing as a young kid
00:07:11 like I got it um I there are times in my life where I forgot that lesson where I you know whether you're doing a spec home or whether you're borrowing large amounts of money or whether you think you know if you're not in tune enough with your your overhead as a business this is why like our whip reports and you know more advanced metrics in building are so important you know they call them kpis you know key performance indicators you know it's like your gas gauge for your business having a few of
00:07:35 them so that you can really understand like I'm out over my skis or I'm on the back of my skis and what I mean by that for the non-skiers is uh you know if if you are spending too much money you're going to burn up and there are times where it's appropriate to do that you know maybe you're doing a marketing campaign where you realize that you know this is going to pay dividends but at least you know and you're making that educated decision so I thought that was really helpful um I also learned a lot
00:08:01 from uh my dad about how to treat the subs and I'll talk about my mom here in a minute but you know one thing that my dad even to this day the subcontractors and the trade partners that my dad worked with you know were multi- multi-decade relationships and you know for me uh I think my plumber is the L where I think I'm the third generation and I think they're third generation on their side too they they have a son that's taking over the plumbing business at some point and that's a pretty special thing and we've talked before on
00:08:31 the podcast of just how emotional and how um for me anyway i i t I'm a very loyal person sometimes maybe too loyal but this is the good side of the loyalty is that you develop these long longstanding relationships you care about them they're your family and and they care about you and I would argue that in the long run even if you let's say you might think you pay more I actually think you pay in the grand schem me I think the value is far higher and the price is far lower if you choose to seek relationship
00:09:00 over a transaction and I'll go I'll I'll go to my bed on that one for sure and if nothing else it feels way better and it comes out in your work it comes out in your mental health it comes out in your character and so I think you know honestly caring about the the subcontractors and the trade partners because you know I am essentially what they used to call my dad a briefcase Builder I'm a marketer who happens to build homes and but you know I've joked with my clients before that the calluses on my hands are not from working on your
00:09:30 house if you see me working on your house like Call the PM I'm ruining something and I say that because my Tradesmen are so much more skilled than I am I'm thinking my cabinet guy in particular I mean he he calls himself a wood butcher but he is a wood Maestro I mean Rich can build anything out of anything uh regarding wood he's incredible Craftsman and so I think just generally being impressed in and making sure sometimes this is harder for men uh in particular but saying thank you finding ways to show them that you
00:09:58 validate and appreci appreciate their work my dad was amazing at this he also was never above doing the lowest job I remember even as kids we would go to the job site again young 9 10 11 12 however old we were and we would push a broom and my dad would go on job site visits he'd take me and um he'd say here's a broom you know go sweep the studs you know we're going to insulate next week you know or just clean up and you know he'd pay me an allowance or whatever and I'd go around and pick up everything
00:10:24 throw it in the dumpster and I remember doing that for years I never thought anything of it and as a kid you kind of make a game out of it I remember one time actually this funny memory I was up on the Second Story with my cousin Jason my dad my uncle was a builder as well and they dropped us off and said we'll come back in four hours and somehow because everything has to be a game with me I somehow convinced my cousin that we should take all the trash to the second level this is so ridiculous and Chuck it
00:10:50 out the Second Story window to see if we could get it in the dumpster and I think when my Uncle Jeff came back it must have been one of his homes there was there was debris everywhere but in the dumpster I mean it looked it was all it was like the Home Run Derby and there was just balls in the Outfield there was none in the there was none where they were supposed to go Lake Society magazine is Minneapolis Premier target market Boutique lifestyle and design publication it embodies the unique Lifestyles and design of the Minneapolis
00:11:14 City Lakes neighborhoods from Lake of the Isles to Lake Harriet it showcases the best in local design projects by both Premier Builders Architects and interior designers in this area Lake Society magazine has the look and feel of a national publication with glossy covers and finishes it's mailed directly to Upper bracket single family homeowners in the city Lakes area and it's the perfect local coffee tabletop publication subscriptions can also be available through the website Lakes Society magazine.com additionally
00:11:44 publisher and founder Karen steckle has over 27 years in the local magazine publishing industry and has a passion for high-end photography and quality Graphics her commitment to Quality visual Simplicity and Beauty are strongly reflected in her beautiful Lake Society Society magazine yeah I've digressed a little bit on that funny memory but you know pushing a broom and then you know having the trade Partners see like well the boss and the boss's son are are just cleaning up our scraps like and and you didn't think that that
00:12:13 would make an impression that the subcontractors would clean up a little bit better and dad didn't do it to show he did it because he actually just loved being on the job site and it was something that he could do to make his trade Partners um you know work easier and better and take pride in what they do the hard part that I have now because I would like to do that is just time and I sometimes struggle or I struggle a lot because I would love to go to the job site and clean to show them but I'm like
00:12:39 I know they also depend on me to make a sale and I'm thinking well okay if I spend two to three hours doing that would I be better off doing two or three hours you know trying to get a client or do some marketing and anyway maybe I should rethink that and maybe it's more important that they see me working in the field I know sometimes when I do a year check-in with my trade Partners they often say they wish they saw me more which earlier on my career they would see me I see them on the on the site walks with the clients and things
00:13:03 like that but um you know when you're not as big of a company you spend more one-on-one time with each one of your subs and and so I think that's important too and and finding ways to do that that was something else my dad did that was amazing is um every year we would do a barbecue and kind of a softball party um I remember being older probably you know high school at this time and you know I'd go to these subcontractor parties and I would see all the guys and you know Dad and Uncle Jeff who was a
00:13:28 builder as I mentioned would you know grill hot dogs and burgers and they would just rent a baseball field in the middle of the day we usually do it like on a Friday so guys had a little bit more flexibility uh because weekends was so hard to get people to leave their families nor would we want them to do that so we would take a half day on the Friday afternoon rent a ball field and just play softball and it was so fun to see in fact one of the most strong memories I have as a as a relationship
00:13:52 building thing with our trade Partners is we were playing softball and it started storming and lightning and I mean crazy amounts of rain and we were already outside playing and we're soaked to the bone we like well we're not going to stop and we played for another couple hours in the pouring rain I remember sliding into like second base and it was just an absolute Lake and just you know completely Splash and mud but to this day that must have been 15 years ago some of our trade Partners still talk
00:14:17 about that softball game so I think just showing genuine care is one of the things that I learned and that's why my dad was so influential with me and even now I mean I'll still sit down with my dad you know once or twice a month for coffee and just chat about business he's been a huge mentor to just bounce ideas off of um and I think he's also given me help helpful perspective at certain points points in my life he said you know you're working too much or you need to take a little more time off or you
00:14:42 know you know don't get too big for your britches you know that was just language that he would he would use um I think he would also most of most business owners would know the principal kiss keep it simple stupid I think my dad was very successful at keeping things pretty simple he had a way that like he taught me how to do a whip report but we didn't call it a whip report uh and I'm sure most CPAs and accountants would cringe at how we did it but we were consistent and it worked and until I you know got
00:15:10 more sophisticated on the back end of my accounting uh over the last you know five six years um that whip report that the way we did it manually worked just fine and it always told me exactly kind of where I was and I would track it uh month to month year to year and I could see trends of cash flow and it worked really really well so I sometimes think that um you know having even though it might not be if it works for you and you've been successful with it don't just completely abandon it there was a
00:15:39 time where I stopped doing it because I was transitioning to some more sophisticated software I should have done it in tandem I should have kept doing it kind of the old way as well as the new way until I was more comfortable with the new way because there was about I would say there was about 12 months where I sort of felt like I was driving with no headlights on at night and it was really uncomfortable uh because I had departed from what I knew and it took me a while to kind of sort out um so yeah my dad was also a really good
00:16:03 showman my dad could sell and I I learned a lot of that from my dad as well just you know um being in front of people entertaining people you know giving them time and maybe here at the last uh part of the question is is um you know the most influential person has to also be a balance of both my mom and dad and for this question my mom taught me about how to treat people my mom is by far the most generous or sorry genuine and generous person with her time of anyone I've ever met she will always make time with you I mean my dad
00:16:38 will too actually but my mom was really good at um there I've quoted this verse a lot and you know Solomon said it so not my mom but you know a a soft answer turneth away wrath I don't think my mom has used that verse as much as I have she just lived it and she would always sort of encourage my dad in difficult situations and I would watch this you know to proceed with kindness and she used to always tell us kids kindness is never out of style and I can't say I'm perfect at this by no means am I but I
00:17:08 often think of that when I go into a difficult situation or to just show someone some gratitude and you know you can if you obviously you know that thing of kill them with kindness I think if you go in and tell someone hey you need to do this that and another thing they don't it doesn't usually especially with men I know I don't respond very well when my wife says do this do that do this it works a lot better if someone says hey would you mind doing this for me please or could you help this and I
00:17:33 found that frame of language uh very helpful in building a home not only with our clients but also with our trade partners and you know asking them again being genuinely curious about what they're doing you know I am for instance is not I'm not an expert trim Carpenter and so you know Todd who is my longtime trimmer for 156 years you know if I went into it and and he would say Mark what do you want to do on this window trim detail this is before Architects you know where we had enough you know details where they're telling us how
00:18:04 they want things laid and and I would say well Todd I mean what would you do if this was your home and that was always kind of my go-to question because a I didn't know the answer but B he's an expert why would I tell him what to do when he really knows I just need to give him permission and really show him that I'm on his on his on his um you know on his team and I think people really Blossom when you ask them for help and that was something that my mom taught me she was really good at ask asking people
00:18:29 for help um my mom is not you know she would never describe herself as a road scholar some genius intellect but I don't know anybody can that can get more things done than my mom she can ask anybody anything for help and I've never to this day seen anyone turn her down either the way she asks it or the kindness in which she asks it I mean she is an incredible where my dad was an expert delegator my mom was an expert you know asker of help I don't know what the word is for that but she was incredible and still is to this day uh
00:19:04 she can ask for help in such a in a powerful way that if you ask somebody for help it sort of empowers you and I probably need to remember that more and more to ask people for help because I think when you do it does two things one it sort of empowers the other person and they feel really good but it also there's something that happens to you too there's kind of a softness and a humility that comes across again that's that's real you can't fake that and so I think I saw also how my mom would be
00:19:29 being an interior designer with my dad and I often asked them both I said what made you successful Builders and my dad said I knew how to build a home but or or build a house but your mom made it a home and I think you know so many decisions that are made in a home are made by women um and the point of it is if you can't relate to women if you can't make them feel comfortable I think my mom has done an incredible job of teaching me how to respect women and how to and how to speak to women and so
00:19:59 often especially you know being a a young man you know 23 24 25 all the way up to my age now you know it's never out of line to speak kindly to everyone but you need to be approachable you need to be kind you need to you know I think sometimes Builders might have a a stereotype of being sort of rough necked a little bit and I don't I mean certainly I've met plenty that are but honestly a lot of them are salt of the earth and you know some sometimes as men we look at other men and we think oh man
00:20:27 um they look pretty Gruff and pretty rough in fact thinking this I'm not going to say his name because you might listen but there's this this this gentleman I'll just call him Ron and he's this big Burly do and my wife loves him he's like a big puppy um and so it's sometimes I think we think image is what makes us approachable to women but I think it's attitude we're excited to announce that we've opened up another curious Collective for the last year we've had the Curious Builder Collective we now have the curus Builder Collective
00:20:55 for designers the first ones will be happening in September Al the details are going to be on our website we have 30 spots available half of them have already filled We additionally have eight spots left in the Builder Collective if you're interested in getting together in small groups of nine with local Minneapolis based Builders and designers in separate groups and talking about your business talking about your Brands asking those questions that you wish you could ask another business owner then this is the place
00:21:21 for you details can be found at the Curious Builder podcast.com and this anyway this Ron character whose real name is not Ron but he I don't know there's something about him you think man how could anyone you know he does not seem very you know cuddly it'd be like a dog having spike collars but this this little puppy he'll just lick you to death and and he's just very approachable so I think just having an attitude and I've had I've had some where I've had some people on my team that honestly I've had to let them go
00:21:49 not my inner team but subcontractors where I consistently have my female clientele um tell me that they find them abrasive they find them rude they find them sexist they find them you know very abrupt and you know after a while if you hear it from multiple clients as the owner I have to do something about that because you can't have people talking to anybody that way much less you know your clients and and and and you know the women that you're trying to make comfortable I mean building a home is
00:22:17 can be a daunting task and if you can't sort of make it approachable and make it you know kind of soften the edges a little bit you're it's just hard to stay in business and and maintain that really deep relationship ship driven business platform that we need to do in the home industry you know we're not selling nuts and bolts you know we're not selling you know water bottles and tables um not sure why those probably because I'm looking at a water bottle and tables coming up to that analogy but when
00:22:42 you're building a home like you're going on a journey and you're spending a lot of time with people and so anyway those are just some lessons that come to mind of how my mom and dad have I guess been the most influential people in my life there's a lot of other people I could give credit to but it'd be pretty hard to beat those life lessons that I've been able to use and apply to my business so hopefully this was helpful and we'll see you next [Music] week thanks for listening to the C builder podcast if you like what you
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